My Ghost In A Shell

by bacchanalia

Summary:

When a mask cracks, what is behind it?

Grimmjow is found wounded perhaps in a way beyond repair, and Ichigo finds he can’t allow that. Coming to terms with a lot of things ensues. Drunk smiles between fists. Hot breaths. And, maybe, what it means to find comfort in violence.

Notes:

I had this idea and thought it would be a one shot.
It’s not going to be a one shot.
Tell me what you think?<3

Chapter 1

 

 

It’s a very normal day in the Kurosaki household. In fact, if a day this normal had occurred a couple years ago, Ichigo would have known it as nothing less than an invitation for some form of bullshittery to come flying his way. But, after Ywach’s defeat, things have been just that. Normal. Mundane. 

Boring. 

It isn’t like Ichigo needs the excitement of a war between the planes of existence again just to be entertained, but, if there was something that would happen, it’d be preferable to the amount of nothing going on around here. Seireitei, though structurally finished rebuilding, still needs all hands on deck, so he can’t remember the last time he saw or heard from Rukia, Renji... And even his younger sisters are developing lives and itineraries of their own. It isn’t like he feels lonely, he still has his dad, and Kon, and–.

Okay, well. 

But it’s fine, it’s really fine. It’s even still fine when his phone rings and it’s the one person he knows without a doubt would never call unless something world-altering was happening. Or, if he were just as bored. Or, if the mood just so happened to come upon him. Or—, well, better to just answer the damn phone. Ichigo’s heart stutters in his chest, a bird rattling its cage bars. Like he said, it isn’t like he wants a war, but… 

Ichigo wants something.

Not that Urahara needs to know how desperate he totally isn’t.

“What do you want, Old Man?”

A loud and badly acted sigh is blown directly into his ear. “It’s…complicated, Kurosaki-san,” Urahara says over the line. His voice is shoddy and crackling and Ichigo wonders where the hell he’s even at when making this call. Does he really have that bad of cell reception in this day and age? Oh, right, but that isn’t the issue at hand. 

The issue at hand is Urahara calling at all. 

“What is?” Ichigo asks, tapping a foot as he shoves his cell phone in between his face and shoulder, rifling through the fridge for a snack before Yuzu has a chance to scold him for ruining his appetite. It’s nearly dinner prep time. Meaning he’s got a solid hour at least. Plenty of time to make sweet sweet love to a slice of tiramisu cheesecake. Dessert before dinner? Nay, dessert before judgment. The way Ichigo intends to eat this chocolate masterpiece is between him and god. 

“The Situation,” Urahara replies, with emphasis on situation and now Ichigo is rolling his eyes and cursing under his breath before he grabs the cake slice by its supple crust and takes a bite. 

“I’ll kill you,” he says, mouth stuffed with smooth, cloud-like heaven. Ichigo mashes the contents between his tongue and the roof of his mouth, savoring, before he swallows. “Just tell me what’s going on already.” 

“Chew with your mouth closed or I’ll trail off on multiple elderly tangents, spinning yarns of my youth with meager relevance to anything on the table for discussion today.” 

“I’m hanging up.” Who has time for this bullshit? There’s still two-thirds of a cake slice making eyes at him. And when he says he wants something that doesn’t mean he wants whatever this conversation is. If his yearning ever deviated towards Urahara, it’d be too late for him.

“Suit yourself!” The drama in Urahara’s voice is thickening, rising in octaves by the second. “Shall I tell Grimmjow-san to find the way to your house on his own then?” 

Pause. 

“Huh!?” The tiramisu fumbles from Ichigo’s hand, dropping onto the countertop with a sad splat. It’s still mostly intact, even if it didn’t fall crust-down, which would have been much more helpful. But Ichigo isn’t above eating it off the counter. Yuzu’s a cleaning fiend. These tiles are spotless. “Fuck,” he still curses, grabbing the fallen soldier and looking around for a paper towel. “Why can’t you ever be normal, huh? Why the hell is Grimmjow even here? Why didn’t you just lead with that?” 

“Ohoho, someone seems to be interested in what I have to say now, hm?” Urahara laughs, a small near-giggle to himself before he’s clearing his throat and getting to the point. In an instant, his voice drops, a serious tone breaking through. “Something’s happened, Kurosaki-san. Something I’m…still looking into. I’ll let you know more when I know more, but, for now, it seems…” 

Ichigo waits. Urahara’s voice fades out. 

The continuation doesn’t come. 

“Urahara I swear to any stick-up-their-ass bookkeeper in Soul Society that I will report you for something if you don’t just get on with it.” 

The next string of words come in a rush.

“It seems that your beloved ex-espada is an amnesiac trying human life for the second time in one of my gigais! Please come pick him up when you have a moment!” 

The line clicks.

Ichigo hears the small beep beep of his call ending, but doesn’t move. He just stands there, mouth ajar much like his refrigerator door, trying to compute what he was just told. Grimmjow. Amnesia. Gigai. 

Grimmjow.

Amnesia. 

Gigai. 

GRIMMJOW. AMNESIA. GIGAI!?

“Onii-chan,” Yuzu says as she walks into the kitchen, a disciplinary frown on her face. “Why are you eating cake this close to dinner? If you lose your appetite and my food goes to waste, I’ll tear up. And when dad kicks you in the head for it, don’t come crying to me.” 

Ichigo hardly hears her, he’s too busy shoving his feet into shoes and booking it for the door. Over his shoulder he tosses out a, “Sorry, Yuzu! Emergency at Urahara’s! Dad kicks me in the head enough as it is though!” 

And Yuzu calls after him, “What’s one more for a bonehead who gets cheesecake all over my counter!” 

He makes it out the door and turns down the street. Urahara has to be fucking with him. None of this makes sense otherwise. Amnesia? Could Arrancar even get that? And if Grimmjow didn’t remember anything, how had he known to come here? And what good is a gigai supposed to do for the whole ordeal? And another thing! Ichigo doesn’t claim to know Grimmjow that well–but he definitely knows him better than Urahara. Like hell that blue-eyed bastard would come to anyone asking for help. He’d rather die. Nothing was adding up. But if Urahara was lying and Ichigo literally booked it to the shop for nothing, there would be hell to pay. Hell, and a new tiramisu cheesecake. 

The way there is short enough. All sidewalks and small trees. Upon arrival, Ichigo throws the outer shoji door open, out of breath and human. Maybe he should have switched with Kon before leaving. Oh well. Too late now. He looks around, nearly manic, when a blond head peaks out around the corner, eyes crinkled. 

“Ah! Kurosaki-san. You made it. Record timing, actually. Did you run?” 

“Where is he?” 

“You’re worried.” That stupid fan is out, covering half of Urahara’s face. Ichigo takes a measured breath and contemplates the pros and cons of kicking the man in the shin. Somehow, he refrains. 

“Your story doesn’t add up. I want answers, and proof. Where is he?” 

“In the bunker.” 

Ichigo goes without a second thought, which is odd, he thinks. Or, maybe it isn’t. Is he worried? To be honest, he isn’t sure. Sorta? It isn’t like Grimmjow and him are friends by any means. In fact, he hasn’t seen the guy at all since Ywach’s defeat and that was…almost two years ago by now. In all honesty, life after everything settled down had become way more mundane than he ever remembered his life being. Boring. And just in the confines of his mind, Ichigo admits he’d kinda been looking forward to Grimmjow crashing through the sky one day, cashing in on Ichigo’s promise to fight him. 

If what Urahara said is true, does that mean…No. No thinking weird emo thoughts until everything gets laid out on the table. The way to the bunker is a short distance from the entrance, and Ichigo quickly opens the hatch in the floor that leads to the ladder going all the way down. If Grimmjow’s in a gigai, why the hell was he tossed down into the fight pit? Regular room should’a kept him just fine, right? 

He can’t jump this far. And now, as Ichigo makes his way down this long ass ladder, he’s really regretting not letting Kon have his monthly custody visit with his body. But he makes it down well enough. At first, nothing happens, and Ichigo scans around him for something. Maybe Urahara is fucking with him and he’s getting locked up in here for some weird experiment. Maybe–. 

He’s tackled to the ground a moment later. 

Hands around his throat from behind, Ichigo thrashes with a mouth shoved full of grit and dirt. He flails, kicking out a leg until it makes meaty contact with some part of the body on top of him, and a voice he recognizes as Grimmjow curses out, “Fuck!” 

It’s all the slight shock Ichigo needs to flip himself over, and send Grimmjow sprawling out on his back, hand on his ribs. 

“Did you sneak up on me!?” Ichigo asks, incredulous as he wipes his face and spits sand out of his mouth to the side. 

At first, Grimmjow doesn’t answer, just gets to his feet and narrows his eyes, a curl to his upper lip and a sound like a growl coming from it. And that’s when Ichigo notices, like his eyes are drawn to nowhere else. The right side of his face is bare. Nothing but smooth cheek. And on the bit of chest showing through his usual black zip-up jumpsuit, no scar. It’s weird, Ichigo thinks. Makes him feel funny in a way he can’t describe. 

Grimmjow says, after a long pause, “Hell are you doin’ here, Kurosaki?” 

Unexpected relief floods Ichigo like a wave, nearly taking him to his knees. 

Still, Ichigo bends over, hands on his thighs, and breathes like he’d been holding it in. 

“I thought you had amnesia?” 

“Who the fuck said that?” 

“Urahara.” 

Grimmjow frowns. He’s staring down at Ichigo with an unreadable expression as he shoves both his hands in his pockets. Ichigo straightens up, watches him right back. It’s unnerving to see his face like this. To see no scars. No evidence of him, his mind provides, strangely. It’s so…human. And Ichigo isn’t good at this on a normal basis so fuck him for even trying in his human body, but the hints of Grimmjow’s reiatsu that he can sense has the same signature. Weak, but Ichigo doesn’t expect to pick up much in this body. 

They stand off, staring at each other. 

“What happened?” Ichigo finally asks when Grimmjow doesn’t respond. 

More frowning. 

Ichigo taps his foot, takes a measured breath. He really can’t stand being ignored or not being answered. And he’s sick of running around today, getting tackled into the dirt which got dust and shit all over his sweatpants, thank you very much, all without anyone just telling him what the fuck was going on. He takes a step closer to Grimmjow, waves a hand in front of his face. 

“Hello?” 

Grimmjow swats at his hand, reflexes still pristine. “Heard you.”

“So, answer! I literally ran over here to help you, asshole! I had cake!”

“And who fuckin’ asked you to do that, huh?” Grimmjow says it with a dismissive sort of bastardry that has Ichigo grinding his teeth and feeling that familiar ball of anger boil in his chest. He has better things to do that try to help a situation no one will explain. If Grimmjow wants to be a dick to him for trying, he can stay down here and rot in the bunker for all Ichigo cares. No skin off his nose. He won’t care at all. In fact, he’ll sleep like a total baby whether he knows what’s up or not.

Probably.

“You know what? Fine. Fuck you. I’m going home.” Ichigo turns with a harsh breath that’s definitely not a haughty little huff, and starts the stupidly long, and strangely embarrassing, climb back up the ladder. This isn’t his problem. In fact, it doesn’t seem to be a problem at all. Urahara probably conned Grimmjow into trying on a gigai–maybe at the promise of a fight–and then lured Ichigo here to test its parameters in the bunker. Well, too bad. Maybe if they’d just been honest, he would have been down. Actually, Ichigo is itching for a fight. Especially after the wild goose chase he’s been on today. 

Grimmjow says nothing as Ichigo makes it to the top and climbs back into the shop. Urahara and Tessai are standing not too far off watching him. With a shove, Ichigo shuts the hatch door, and begins to walk right past the both of them. 

“Nice try. But if you wanted me to test a new gigai with a fight you should have told me first. See ya.” 

Urahara makes no move to stop him, but he does speak up the moment Ichigo’s back is to him. “A great idea, but I would have ensured you came prepared for a fight if that were what I wanted.” Pause. Ichigo’s steps slow, but don’t stop. “Can I assume he insulted your delicate sensibilities and this is why you’re storming out?” 

Ichigo groans, turns around and runs a hand over his face. “He doesn’t have amnesia. So what the hell is it? One shot, Clogs, or I’m going back home. If I miss dinner, Yuzu will cry. Is that what you want?” 

“Of course not.” Urahara looks to Tessai, they exchange a glance Ichigo can’t read. “And, now, you said he does not have amnesia?” 

“Unless I don’t know what that word means, no. He knew my name the second I went down there, then tried to attack me. Seemed pretty usual.”

“He said your name?” 

A groan of exasperation. “I’m leaving.” 

“This morning we picked up an Arrancar’s signature somewhere in between here and your home,” Urahara starts, and finally, Ichigo has a reason to listen. He turns around, one brow raised. 

“I didn’t catch that,” he says with a slight frown. Even though everyone knows he isn’t the best with reiatsu recognition, there’s no way Grimmjow’s wouldn’t catch his attention, right? Arrancar are on an entirely different level than any other hollow, and Ichigo could feel those just fine once they got close enough. For Grimmjow to have been closer than the shop and going unnoticed? It made even less sense. 

“You wouldn’t have,” Urahara continues, blowing out a sigh. “It was weak. Hardly recognizable as Grimmjow-san’s signature. Honestly, when we first picked it up, I wondered if my equipment was damaged. To be safe, I went myself. What I found was a strange sight. You remember Neliel-san’s condition that reduced her to a child?” 

Suddenly feeling very wary, Ichigo glances to the hatch in the floor as if Grimmjow would climb up any moment, sword at the ready. He looks back to Urahara, mouth set in a firm line, and nods. Urahara continues because it finally seems like he’s going to get on with it.

“I encountered Grimmjow-san in a similar situation. Nothing so youthful, he still looked the same, but did not seem to recognize where he was or who he was speaking to. He was very violent, as is his nature. So, I brought him home, tossed him into a body that couldn’t rend me when I turned my back, and called you.”

Ichigo’s brows furrow, confusion etching itself there. He isn’t stupid, but what the fuck does any of that mean? “If he wasn’t a kid, then how was it the same as Nel? Man, can’t any of you people just say what you mean?” 

“His mask was fractured, Kurosaki-san,” Urahara says, and chills race through Ichigo’s body, snapping him to attention. The severity of that–wouldn’t it mean Grimmjow encountered another hollow in Hueco Mundo stronger than him? Or had something happened with Harribel? Ichigo couldn’t deny that his interest was piqued. And if this is what’s going on, of course Grimmjow wouldn’t say shit about it. Of course he’d be doing the tough guy routine. Why would he admit weakness to anyone?

He wouldn’t.

“So, what does that mean? Why’d you go with the amnesia bit, anyway?” 

Urahara holds up his hands. “It wasn’t a bit. When I came across him, he did not at all indicate that he remembered who I was. Unlike Neliel, who became childlike, Grimmjow seems to have become…more instinctual with the loss of his reiatsu. Animal-like. You telling us he called you by name would be the first words he’s said since I brought him back.” 

“The loss of his reiatsu?” Ichigo’s eyes widen, heart kicking up a notch. Grimmjow’s the last person on the list of anyone who would handle a loss of their power. “So–okay, time-out,” he says, and holds up his hands in an X shape. “Masked cracked. Reitatsu gone. Sure. Why the gigai? I don’t buy that it was for your protection. If he really is weakened, he’d be a walk in the park for you.” 

Urahara shakes his head, crossing his arms. “Not reiatsu gone, more like…consider it a leak. With a fractured mask, the power escapes. Grimmjow has a lot of it. Every moment he spent in his soul form meant more and more of it spilling out. I had to act quickly. There was no telling what might be beckoned here by the scent of a weakened arrancar. The gigai is a precaution until we can handle the situation.” 

“And by handle it, you mean…” 

Urahara levels his eyes with Ichigo and says, “I mean that we fix it, or we kill him before the less-obedient adjuchas of Las Noches can make their way here in droves.”

The threat slices Ichigo’s chest, clean through, and a roiling ugly thing rears its head. Ichigo feels his jaw tense, his fists ball. He says, “I’m not helping you kill him.” 

And Urahara, as if that were all he wanted to hear, smiles bright. “That’s why I called you, Kurosaki-san! I knew you’d be perfectly up for the interesting test.” He pauses, lifting open the door hatch. “Now, if you’ll please!” 

“Can’t we just bring him up here?” Long ass ladder… 

“Not until you confirm he won’t claw my couch! Down you go!” 

Ichigo is not a trusting man, and yet, for the second time in one day, he is snuck up on. Tessai, suddenly a looming presence at his back, effortlessly lifts him up from behind and proceeds to drop him down through the hatch. 

If anyone hears Ichigo Kurosaki scream like his little sisters the first and only time they saw their father wax his chest, no they didn’t.

Luckily for him, Ichigo manages to flail just enough that he grabs the bars of the ladder, slides down and down and down until his hands are burning. When he finally comes to a stop, it’s with only three more rungs before he hits the floor. Out of breath and terrified, he turns, screaming up to the ceiling.

“I know you can fucking hear me, old man so know when I get back up there I’m torching your porn stash! And I know where it is!” 

Over the intercom, a voice rings out, “I moved it since the last time Jinta outed me, I’m afraid.”

Fuck. 

“I’ll kick you in the balls!” 

“Seduce me later! Have fun!” 

Ichigo turns around, fuming. “I’m going to kill him. I could have fucking died!” 

Grimmjow, who has taken to sitting off to the side, knees up and arms slung over them, says, “Thought you left?” 

“Did you not see me just get tossed down this hole!?” Was everyone insane except him? 

Grimmjow shrugs. 

Ichigo rakes a hand through his hair, calming himself one deep breath at a time. Grimmjow needed his help. Now, he just had to convince the ex-espada to accept it. Easy. 

“Look,” Ichigo says, walking over to Grimmjow and plopping down criss-cross in the dirt beside him. He hunches over a bit, hands on his thighs, and really looks at the guy. If you didn’t count the lack of scars or the missing jaw mask, nothing else is different. Same scowl. Same eyes. “I’m gonna say something that you’re gonna hate. But I need you to work with me, yeah?” 

The scowl turns into a small snarl, Grimmjow’s upper lip curling back and showing off white teeth. His eyes narrow, but otherwise says nothing. Urahara’s tidbit about him not talking was adding up now. Ichigo almost tries not to preen over being the exception to that rule. Did that mean anything? Urahara had said Grimmjow was found somewhere between the shop and his house. Did that mean Grimmjow was…coming to him? Or is it just a coincidence? 

Because he enjoys flirting with death, Ichigo flicks the tip of one of Grimmjow’s fingers, and receives a throaty growl for his hubris. 

“I asked a question,” he says, holding his hands up. 

“And I’m waitin’ for you to spit it out. Ain’t gonna agree to shit before I know what it is.” 

And he can’t help himself, he really can’t. Ichigo smiles. Soft, nearly fond. 

“Sure, sorry. Ah, I need you to let me help you. Urahara says your mask is cracked. Can I see?”

The growl increases now. Those narrowed blue eyes flicking up to the ceiling then back down. “Don’t need some fuckin’ shinigami’s help.” 

Ichigo rolls his eyes. “Classic. Okay, what if it’s not a shinigami helping you?” He pats himself on the chest, holds out his arm. “I’m human right now. See?” 

Grimmjow leans forward, that confused crease to his brow present once more. He stares at Ichigo hard before that gaze roams over him. Not exploratory, but calculating. Intentional. Leaning in a bit closer, he sniffs, a crinkle folding itself into the bridge of his nose as his lips part. Ichigo holds very still and uses every single ounce of conviction he has to not out Grimmjow for making that cat scenting face. He’s sure that if he even dares to breathe, it’ll all shatter. The sniffing goes on for some time, and then it’s over, with cold eyes back on his own. This is the quietest he’s ever seen Grimmjow, and it’s relatively strange to navigate. 

“Can you smell bullshit, or what?”

“Yeah. But not what I was doin’.” 

“Then what were you doing?” 

Growl. 

Ichigo takes a deep breath, flops backwards and orients himself so that he can turn his head to the side and watch Grimmjow that way. This will be more difficult than he’d thought, and he’d already thought it’d be a train wreck. How the hell is he supposed to do this? 

“Maybe we can just start with you telling me what happened?” 

“Let’s skip that.” 

“We can’t skip it, dumbass.” 

Grimmjow raises his voice, seeming to become more frustrated by the second. “Why the hell not?” 

And Ichigo sits up because it is not conducive to laying down if he’s going to get all riled up. He throws his arms up like it’s the most obvious thing in the world because, hello, it is. “Because I need to know what the fuck is going on, asshole! Urahara says he found you in the street with a broken mask and you wouldn’t talk to him! So I need you to talk to me because if we don’t fix this shit you’re gonna be stuck in that gigai for–.” 

“I don’t know!” Grimmjow all but roars, a fury Ichigo has never heard before dripping from his tongue like venom. His chest is heaving, eyes wild and snarl all teeth. He stands, and Ichigo stands too because it feels strange to be loomed over and screamed at. But Grimmjow doesn’t stop. “I don’t fuckin’ know what hit me! Can’t remember shit! That what you wanna hear? So you can use it against me? Pretend I’m some weak little shit who needs your protection?” 

“No you stupid prick! I said I wanted to help you!”

“And I say that’s bullshit!” 

Ichigo shoves him in the chest because what else is he supposed to do? “Well it isn’t!” 

Grimmjow punches him in the face and somehow Ichigo doesn’t see it coming. It connects with more power than he would have hoped, and weakly he remembers that the last time he’d gotten into a fight in his human body was back in highschool. Ichigo staggers to the side, holds his cheek. He doesn’t pause, doesn’t hesitate. He swings back at Grimmjow. 

“Quit being fucking stupid!” 

“Quit treatin’ me like I was born yesterday, Kurosaki. I can see it in your fuckin’ eyes! It’s always in those damn eyes!” 

And okay maybe all the frustration of the day so far warrants a little blowing off steam because when Grimmjow throws another punch Ichigo leans into the fight in totality. They trade blows, kicks, hell–Grimmjow even bites him. It goes like that for longer than he keeps track of. All that blood pumping. There’s an excitement he can’t name here, something that feels right. That feels like home. 

Maybe he misses fighting this bastard, just a little. Just like this, where he can use all the power he wants without worrying about hurting the other party or how it will be received. Even when he gets knocked down, Grimmjow will stop at nothing to stand up again. And no matter how much Ichigo is bleeding from his teeth getting knocked in, he won’t be shown any mercy. And he loves it, damn…he loves it. 

It ends with Grimmjow on top of him, both of them panting. Ichigo can already feel the bruises on his ribs from how many times he was kicked. And even though they’re both to the point of utter exhaustion, Grimmjow’s lip is still curled, a warning snarl and a grip to the front of Ichigo’s shirt. 

Ichigo says, breathless and with his eyes slipping shut. “Can you…at least tell me…what you do remember?”

And Grimmjow’s answer is frustrated and disgusted. It’s judgment and confusion and hatred. He says, 

“You! Just…you.” 

Chapter 2

When they come out of the bunker, Ichigo looks worse for wear. A couple years without a good fight in his physical body has left him somehow less reactive, instincts on delay. Maybe the difference shouldn’t have felt so noticeable. Back when he’d first started shinigami training, leaving his body felt like suffocating. Like the world’s reiatsu was going to crush him. This is different. This is heavier. Like he’s being weighed down by the pure corporeality of it all. The knowledge makes him frown, a small wound on his pride. He isn’t typically like this. He’s never given a shit how strong he was, or whose ass he could kick. He just kicked them. And if he got knocked down, he got back up. 

Grimmjow knocks him down in more ways than one. 

Urahara is seated at the low table as Ichigo closes the hatch behind him. Tessai is nowhere to be found, but that’s typical. He takes a breath, feels an ache in his jaw, and comes to stand beside Grimmjow who’s taken to gazing lethally at Urahara from a distance. Impossibly, the urge to put a hand on the espada’s shoulder flits through his mind, and he chucks it out as fast as it comes.

Grimmjow doesn’t need pleasantries or comfort. If Ichigo wants to lose a hand that badly, he’ll think of something more creative. 

“Well,” Urahara says, sipping tea. “You boys made it out in one piece.” 

“You better be on this,” Ichigo answers, tone hard. Too many things are games to this man. Lives included. Ichigo isn’t interested in being anyone’s pawn in anything. Not again. 

“ On it?” A brow is raised, nothing more. 

Ichigo walks forward, comes to stand close to the other who’s lounging like nothing crazy is happening, and has half a mind to put a shoe up on his table. He doesn’t, of course, because he’s not a heathen. Grimmjow is, but he’s busy going through it. Probably. Ichigo doesn’t know. Wouldn’t even if he asked. 

“Yes,” he says, instead of trying to rally Grimmjow into delinquent-levels of intimidation. “On it. As in, if I’m gonna help, you’re helping too.” 

The fan flicks out. “How shall I do that, Kurosaki-san? You’re more welcome in Hueco Mundo than I am, I would venture. And Soul Society won’t be very helpful in your endeavors to heal a hollow.” 

What bullshit. And sure, okay, maybe he’s a little haughty on this. No need to consider why or dwell, but he is. And he says so, frustration seeping into his tone. He says,“They fucking well should be considering this guy,” and points to Grimmjow, “is the reason Askin didn’t kill like five of us. In fact, Akon spending ten minutes on this is the least anyone can do.” 

“Don’t need your fuckin’ charity,” Grimmjow speaks up from where he’s taken to leaning against the wall, hands stuffed in his pockets. “Just tell me how to get the hell outta this fake meat sack, and I’ll be gone.” 

Urahara’s voice is entirely unbothered when he says, “I may as well skewer you on Benihime now to save you the trouble.”

“Fuck did you just say to me, Shinigami?”

Ichigo pinches the bridge of his nose. 

“Oh! I didn’t realize your hearing went with your memory. I meant that if you leave the gigai, you’ll be dead by nightfall with the way your reiatsu was pouring out. And then we’ll have to deal with every adjuchas and menos in Las Noches beckoned by the scent. But, sure, maintain that boisterous pride of yours.” 

Grimmjow snarls, takes a step forward with his hand instinctively going to his hip, only to come up empty. No sword in the gigai. The brief moment that a tick of confusion appears on his face is all Ichigo needs to move, to put himself in front of Grimmjow and place a hand on his chest in a way that hopefully doesn’t feel too insulting. 

“Can you knock it the fuck off?” Ichigo says to Urahara. 

“The murderous hollow doesn’t get scolded?” 

“You’re provoking him. Why?” 

Ichigo feels skin contact move away from his touch, and to his shock, he sees that Grimmjow has actually backed down. Just a bit. 

Urahara’s eyes flick between the two of them. “Provoking is such a sour word. I prefer testing .” He pauses, then says, “Sit.” 

Nothing about sitting around the table with Urahara has the potential to produce anything good or worthwhile, so Ichigo doesn’t. It isn’t even that he’s really mad or pissed at the guy. And, though he’s not really in the mood to play silver lining or devil’s advocate, the truth is that Urahara didn’t have to take Grimmjow back. He didn’t have to house him in a gigai. He could have easily killed him. 

Any other captain-class shinigami most likely would have. 

But this day has been nothing but shit so far and Ichigo is close to missing dinner. He needs to go home. He needs to–. 

Hang on. 

“What the fuck do we do with him?” he asks to the room. 

Grimmjow, who hasn’t mouthed off since Urahara told him he’d be dead in a few hours, remains silent. 

Urahara takes a breath. “Well, he can either be housed in the bunker–I’m sure I can scrounge up some food bowls, a litter box–.” Growl. “--but I was thinking he’d be better kept in your competent hands, Kurosaki-san.” 

“What? No way. I’m not a babysitter.” Then turns to Grimmjow. “No offense.”

“Fuck you.”

Urahara holds up his hands. “It’s only temporary, and besides, a little birdie tells me you’ve been bored lately. That you laze around the house with no thrills or excitement anymore.” 

“If you take my dad’s word for gospel at your poker nights, that’s your problem.” 

He smiles. “Yuzu-chan told me, actually.” 

Ichigo pales. 

“I–.” He turns, looks back to Grimmjow who’s glaring off to the side. Fuck. “Fine. But one swing at my sisters and I’ll–.”

Grimmjow’s eyes dilate, constrict, like a cat’s ready to pounce. “You’ll what, huh?” 

Eyeroll. “I’ll appoint Kon as your guardian and then you’ll kill yourself in ten minutes flat.” 

Urahara clears his throat to stifle a laugh and says, “And, just so I know, not because I’m going to be looking into hollow memory care, how much has been wiped?” 

And Ichigo knows he’s not doing himself or Grimmjow any favors by hiding any semblance of the truth. He knows it’d be better to reiterate what Grimmjow had told him. That he only remembers one thing, one person. That person being Ichigo. But, instead, he says, 

“He actually just thinks you’re an asshole and was already pissed off by the mask crack. His memory’s fine.” 

That gets those blue eyes on him. 

Urahara says nothing, only watches Ichigo for a moment too long. Earlier Ichigo had asked Grimmjow if he could smell bullshit. If there is ever a moment for that from the previous captain of squad twelve, it’s now. But Ichigo holds his ground, stares the other down and doesn’t crack. 

Urahara says, “Have a fun sleepover, Kurosaki-san. And keep me updated will you?” 

Ichigo nods, turns to motion for Grimmjow to follow him. “Let’s go.” 

And at first, he really doesn’t think the espada is going to listen to him. Why would he? But to everyone in the room’s shock, he does. Grimmjow pushes off the wall, hands still buried in his pockets, and trails behind Ichigo as they make their way from the shop. Outside, the air hits fresh and crisp. Despite what Urahara said, it already is dark. He’d definitely missed dinner. 

“My house isn’t a far walk,” he says as he starts along the familiar roads. It’s quiet in Karakura. Only the occasional car coming down the road. And Ichigo is happy to have the journey in silence. Honestly, his heart is kinda pounding right now. What had he agreed to? Without even informing his–oh fuck, his dad. What the hell was he supposed to say? Okay, well, the truth, sure. But even the thought of a family outcry at a hollow, one of Aizen’s ex-bests at that, under their roof, it would be drama, disaster, and a humor no one needed in their lives. Like everything with his family, to be fair. 

But, then what? What the hell was he supposed to do about any of this? He wasn’t a healer–. 

Oh.

Inoue.

A pang of guilt shoots through his chest at the thought of her. If it’d been a while since he’d seen Renji or Rukia, it’d been even longer since he’d been out with any of his friends. Uryuu, Chad, Tatsuki, Inoue… For a while, after Ywach, it had felt like too much. Like he was just supposed to get up and get on with his life. Go back to school and maybe pass, get a job, make a facebook. 

Be human. 

And he’d realized somewhere along the way that he just doesn’t feel good at that anymore. Like he’s an outsider looking in. And his friends wouldn’t get it but they'd try, of course they would, but… Maybe him and Grimmjow aren’t so different after all in the way they’re both brooding bastards. His friends deserve better, don’t they? He’d be a total dickbag of a friend to text Inoue now after her last several messages went ignored just to ask a favor. Then again, what’s the alternative? He doesn’t know the first thing about how to go about this. What to do. How he is supposed to share any sort of space for any length of time with Grimmjow of all people without breaking the walls in a fight is beyond him.

“Oi,” Grimmjow says from behind, snapping Ichigo out of his internal spiraling. 

He turns his head, doesn’t stop walking, and says, “Huh?” 

Grimmjow’s glaring at him. No shocks there. And Ichigo actually has to fight back the tiniest smirk at the thought of the asshole just shooting him daggers where he can’t even see. But it looks like he’s sizing something up, calculating. Like he’s about to ask a question but also trying to figure out the answer first so he doesn’t have to. 

“You covered for me. With that striped hat motherfucker. Why?” 

Why indeed. 

Ichigo shrugs, feeling caught between being self conscious and wary at admitting niceties. He turns his head forward again. Grimmjow’s steps continue to fall behind him. 

“Because you’re like, easily one of the most prideful people I’ve ever met in my life and I figured if you weren’t going to tell him yourself it wasn’t my place.”

“It wasn’t.”

“So I didn’t.” 

Silence. 

Ichigo is tempted, so very tempted, to look behind him and see what sort of expression Grimmjow has on his face, but he refrains somehow. If there’s anything he knows about the guy, it’s that pushing him won’t help. Whatever information he’s going to know on the subject, it won’t be conquered, it’ll be earned. Ichigo isn’t sure if he’s invested enough to try that hard yet. But something about this situation is eating a hole in his chest. No irony intended.

He lets their walk continue like that, quiet with the sound of footsteps. He doesn’t need to talk, and neither does Grimmjow. And, actually, it’s nicer than he’d like to admit. He enjoys taking walks, getting fresh air to clear his head sometimes when the wasp’s nest in between his ears gets too loud. Maybe it’s because he used to spend every night out here. Fighting hollows. Sublimating them. Now, after everything, he’s not really needed for that anymore. 

Not really needed for a lot of things, he supposes.

Grimmjow’s presence is so heavy behind him. But it isn’t a negative thing. It’s almost like a comfort. He can zone out and know he isn’t the only person there to pay attention. 

Person. 

Hm. 

“Hey,” Ichigo says casually when they finally make it to his house. The sign of the Kurosaki Clinic shines above him, not that they’re using this entrance. “When we get inside, there’ll be my dad, two sisters, and Kon. They’re…a lot. But probably won’t cause too much of a scene. I could lie about who you are but I don’t feel like hearing it when you call me a fuckin’ shinigami or whatever the hell else, so. I’m just gonna tell them. Cool?” 

Grimmjow’s still behind him, unspeaking. Ichigo turns to look at him and immediately sees the wheel’s turning, the flaring of nostrils and tension in the other’s jaw. He knows better than to coax, to comfort. He’s not quite sure which sounds like the worst part of this. So, instead, he just waits. Ichigo has no problem with it. Leans against the wall and just watches Grimmjow. Watches the sky. 

“Odds of you knowin’ how to get outta this thing?” 

Ichigo sucks his teeth, tongues at them behind his lips. “I know how.” 

Grimmjow’s eyes narrow. “But?”

“But I’m not showing you if it’s as bad as Urahara says. I can’t risk my sisters like that.” 

Grimmjow scoffs, a disgusted, bitter thing when he says, “Think you could handle anythin’ that came swingin’ at you, Kurosaki.” 

And sure, he’s probably not wrong. At this point, Ichigo has essentially fought god and won. But that isn’t the point. It isn’t the point at all. You don’t just invite danger into your home because you can deal with whatever it is when it gets there. Ichigo remembers their expressions, from way back when. The first night he got his shinigami abilities. The fear on Karin’s face. Yuzu’s screams. Like hell he’d willingly invite that shit again just because he’d be able to kill whatever showed up after the fact. And maybe he was done killing hollows like they were nothing but mindless, rabid things. 

Maybe he’d seen enough. 

“Look,” he says instead of any of that, and shoves off the brick to walk closer to Grimmjow. It’s cold outside, his breath visible in the air. This feels strange, awkward. He’s used to fighting Grimmjow, not talking to him. Besides, the only time he tried, the bastard didn’t listen anyways. Ichigo remembers that too. Beat and bleeding when he’d said, Drop your sword, Grimmjow , and Grimmjow had looked at him with such fucking disdain when he said,

No .

Ichigo doesn’t feel like fighting again. His ribs are already screaming at him and one is likely broken. His face is beaten to shit and so is Grimmjow’s. Maybe, in the gigai, he can feel those effects more. But just because Ichigo doesn’t want to fight doesn’t mean he expects Grimmjow to be reasonable by any means. So, what do you say to a man whose pride is only outweighed by the strength to put his money where his mouth is? 

Ichigo says, “If you wanna give up and go back to Hueco Mundo to lick your wounds until you lose the rest of your reiatsu, that’s fine by me. But I didn’t think you were the type to admit defeat so easily.” 

A scoff. “Are you fuckin’ baiting me?” 

Ichigo shrugs. “Is it working?”

Silence. 

Then, “Two sisters, huh?” 

 

***

 

It starts with a flying kick to the face the moment he walks in. 

Ichigo, having for some reason not anticipated the attack, isn’t able to block in time and is launched directly back into Grimmjow, who catches him not by intention but by being the physical embodiment of a wall. 

“What the fuck, Dad!” Ichigo yells, rubbing at his jaw and nose while he steadies himself and Grimmjow gives him a harsh shove and a grunt. Okay. Expected. 

“My daughter has been sobbing, Ichigo!” Isshin’s voice is booming and dramatic and geez, why did Ichigo think this was a good idea? Wait. He didn’t. “Explain yourself! Explain how you can let your little sister cry like–.” He halts, mid pointed finger, noticing Grimmjow. “And you’ve brought home a boyfriend. Is this how I find out?” 

“Oh my god,” Ichigo says, covering his face in his hands. “He’s not my fucking–.” 

“Dad, stop, I wasn’t crying.” Yuzu comes around the corner, hands on her hips as if she’s ready to scold Ichigo too or just heard the boyfriend comment. “And what do you mean boyfriend?” 

Yeah, it’s that last bit. 

“He’d have to leave the house to get one of those,” Karin calls out from the living room. 

Ichigo promptly turns around, hands on Grimmjow’s chest as he pushes and says, “Okay, we’re figuring something else out. Let’s go.” Why did Urahara have to make this thing’s chest so solid? But Grimmjow doesn’t move. Why would he? Why would anyone want to make anything easier on him? Okay. Chill the melodrama. Ichigo pushes with a bit more conviction then looks up into blue eyes that hold way more amusement in them than they should. “And… you think this is funny.” 

“Should’a told me your family shit on you, I’d’ve come skippin’.” 

Ichigo punches Grimmjow in the chest, half-hearted but for good measure, and sighs. 

Small footsteps sound behind him. Karin says, “That’s not his boyfriend.” 

Ichigo spins around. Salvation from the most unexpected of places. A thank you on his lips. But he doesn’t get to finish because Karin follows it up with, “That’s a hollow.” 

And Grimmjow says, “ Arrancar ,” like it’s a correction that matters. But, then again he guesses it is. Ichigo logs that away as something he remembers. 

“Technically,” Ichigo says, wanting this to be over. He isn’t quite sure what all encompasses this just yet. “He’s an arrancar in a gigai. Temporarily.”

“ How temporary?” Karin, unamused.

“Confidential.” 

“So you don’t know. And what happened to your face?”

“Kicked his ass.” Grimmjow. 

Karin raises a brow. “He kick yours too then?”

Ichigo looks to Yuzu and changes the subject before this can escalate any farther. “Is there dinner left?”

Yuzu gasps, a tiny thing, as she hurries over to the fridge. “Yes! You didn’t think I’d let dad eat it all, did you?” 

Isshin clears his throat. “I may have had seconds. After the leftovers were cleared.” 

Ichigo deadpans. So much for parents who provide. But Yuzu rifles around the fridge for a little while longer before pulling back with a winning grin and a full plate covered in plastic wrap. She sticks her tongue out at Isshin and Ichigo can’t help the smile on his face as she says, “Hah. You got the decoy leftovers. I put these behind the vegetables where I knew you wouldn’t look.”

“My own daughter,” Isshin starts with a sniffle. “Conspiring against me all to spoil the rotten son who runs off before dinner to bring his arrancar boyfriend back to our home where we live in peace and—.”

“Will you can it!?” Ichigo is about to kick the old man back himself. Something about this is embarrassing. Not that he’s trying to impress Grimmjow, but really, you can’t take his family anywhere. Still, all of this is uncharted territory for him. He can’t even remember the last time anyone came over. 

Yuzu, who has moved on from the yelling and is heating up the plate, looks at Grimmjow with a face of hardly concealed devastation. “I’m sorry there’s not more. I didn’t know we’d have a guest. What do you like to eat? I can make something quick and you can share the rest with Ichigo!” 

Ichigo does not intervene, doesn’t offer to save Grimmjow from having to answer himself because the expression on his face is leveling the playing field of his own embarrassment. Grimmjow looks like he’s never been more uncomfortable in his life while also still somehow maintaining his aura of not giving a fuck. He stares Yuzu down hard and Ichigo feels a tension in his body, protective even if he doesn’t think Grimmjow is brainless enough to attack her. 

“Don’t need to eat,” he says. 

“You uh, might actually,” Ichigo muses, wondering himself. Yeah, right? Rukia ate lunch with him at school. Hell, wasn’t his dad’s body still technically a gigai? How did that work again? “Are you hungry at all?” 

“Fuck do you care?” Grimmjow spits, venom and bared teeth. 

“Language, Mr Arrancar!” Isshin spouts off as if f-bombs didn’t get tossed around here on an hourly basis between Ichigo and Karin.

It’s a bit too much. Ichigo can tell. The way he can practically feel Grimmjow’s hackles raising at the multiple sets of eyes on him and questions posed. Even if Ichigo isn’t friends with the guy by any means, there’s a certain empathy in what he’s witnessing. And though Grimmjow is not the type to admit when he’s overwhelmed, this had to have been a hell of a day. Mask broken. Memory wiped. Then shoved in a body he doesn’t understand and tossed into an underground bunker only to eventually find himself standing in the kitchen of a mostly normal and mostly human home to be…stared at. 

Karin says, “So you eat people instead of food?” and Ichigo holds up his hands before Grimmjow even has the chance to grind his teeth. 

“Okay! Change of plans!” Careful to not touch lest he start another fist fight, Ichigo moves his body in between his family and Grimmjow and hopes to any god up there that the man doesn’t take it as an insult. “We’re going upstairs. Yuzu, you mind bringing up the plate when it’s heated?” 

“Sure!” she answers, peppy. “But since nobody answered my question I’ll just make something easy to go with it so there’s enough for both of you. Judging by how beat up you are, you’re gonna need your strength.” 

“Thanks, Yuzu,” Ichigo answers, fond in his voice and face. He doesn’t give anyone else a chance to be a busy body, just gestures with a jut of his jaw for Grimmjow to follow him one more time. 

To his bedroom. 

Easy. Totally. 

The room is quiet, and messy. The window by his bed is cracked, and clothes litter the floor just shy of a pigsty. To his surprise and relief, Kon isn't here. He probably fell asleep in Yuzu’s room. Proof of the divine considering it’s the last thing he needs to deal with right now. Grimmjow is giving off vibes of a man who’s only moments away from self detonating. Up here would probably be easier on him. It was quiet. 

They were alone. 

“Uh,” Ichigo starts, scratching awkwardly at the back of his neck as he tries to look everywhere other than at the arrancar who’s taken to sniffing the air. “Do you…want a bath? Before we eat, I mean. Or we can eat first.” He finally looks, makes eye contact with Grimmjow. The glare is back. Ichigo returns the look. “What?” 

“I’m not one of your fuckin’ friends. Quit tryin’ to host me.” 

“I’m literally hosting you.” 

“And I don’t need all that cushy human shit! You gotta roof? S’good enough for me.”

Ichigo groans, drags hands over his face. Mutters, “God, you’re such a prideful fucking bastard.”

“Say that shit again to me.” 

Ichigo doesn’t, but he does get up in Grimmjow’s face and says, “Can’t you just shut up and take courtesy? Don’t give me shit about it. This sucks. I don’t know what the hell happened to you. You don’t know what the hell happened to you! And there isn’t shit we can do about that right now so just–quit being difficult and take a fucking bath!” 

This close, Grimmjow bares his teeth with a deep reverberation in his chest that Ichigo wonders how he can still make in this body. There’s actually a lot of things he wonders about this body. In a totally normal way, of course. Nothing weird. Grimmjow’s chest is heaving and there’s something going on behind those eyes that Ichigo wishes he was privy to. It would make navigating all of this so much easier. He doesn’t want to fight, but he’s also not going to deal with bullshit. 

After what feels like a tense standoff, Grimmjow clenches his jaw so tightly it looks like it’s about to snap. Then he says, “So fuckin’ run it.” 

Run it. The bath. 

Ichigo blows out a sigh of relief, and there’s the barest hints of a smile there. “Gimme a sec.” 

He runs the bath, nice and hot. Leaves out the bubbles. One victory at a time. He also puts a towel and some of his bigger sweatpants out, moves the soap so they’re right in front where they can’t be missed. And he doesn’t even have to shove Grimmjow into it. The arrancar goes with a rough shoulder check to Ichigo as he passes.

Then, it’s just him. 

Ichigo flops back onto his bed, stares at his ceiling. The silence and fatigue of the day settle around him like a blanket all their own and it’s nice. He lets eyes slide shut, mind quelled for the moment. His senses float out around him, feeling for the small thing that was Grimmjow’s reiatsu, just down the hall. The longer Ichigo feels it, the more familiar it is. He’s still a little miffed that Urahara noticed it before him, regardless of the fact that the man had equipment. Then again, even if he had been the one to find Grimmjow, nothing would have changed. In fact, he only would have wasted more time in having to come up with contacting Urahara anyways. 

Still, the whole thing eats at him. A knot of guilt festering in the pit of his stomach. He isn’t a shinigami anymore, not really. It isn’t his job to go out on the town like it used to be. But…if Grimmjow had come here, no memory except for him, that meant he’d been looking for him, didn’t it? Trying to find him. For help? It sounded way too unlikely. Grimmjow didn’t accept help from anyone. Hell, he didn’t even admit he needed any. So the thought of the ex-espada, injured and with his mask broken, opening a garganta and trying to get to him only for Urahara to do his job. It…fuck. It pisses him off. Makes him feel even more useless than he had for the last year. 

Grimmjow had tried to find him. 

Ichigo won’t let it be in vain. Regardless of how hard-headed the both of them are. Regardless of whether Grimmjow even admits it to be the reason he’d come here. It doesn’t matter. Whatever the hell happened, they’d figure it out.

And then Grimmjow walks back into the room. 

He’s shirtless, which Ichigo clocks immediately for reasons totally irrelevant, and frowning at a wad of fabric in his hands. At least he’s wearing the sweatpants, dark grey and riding low and–holy shit Urahara added a happy trail? Focus. What the fuck. 

“Uh–,” he says, sitting up maybe just a bit too fast and clearing his throat. “I…did my shirt suck?” His mouth is dry. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about the fact that Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez is standing shirtless and steaming in his room. With no hole in his stomach. Oh. That was weird. No hole. No mask. He looks…he looks human. 

Grimmjow meets his eyes. “Dunno how you wear this shit. Too tight.” 

“Well your chest is like…huge.” 

“Checkin’ me out?” Grimmjow asks, a bit of a smirk. And Ichigo isn’t going to play into that. No way. He’s not that easy. 

He rolls his eyes instead and says, “Is the water still warm? I’m going next.” 

“Take my leftovers how you get ‘em. Where’s the food?” 

“Where did your good mood come from?” Ichigo comments as he gets up, tries not to stare. It works. Mostly. Okay, it doesn’t. But he isn’t obvious. 

Grimmjow shrugs. “Hot water changes a man. Forgot how good that shit felt.” 

“Yuzu said she’d bring it when it’s ready. She’s probably making a whole new dinner down there for you, knowing her.” 

Another frown. “Why?” 

And when Ichigo looks at him, he’s a little taken aback to see that Grimmjow means it not in an asshole way, but in a serious way. Like he’s curious but a little jaded. It makes sense. Not much kindness around Hueco Mundo. But Ichigo doesn’t have a good answer that won’t be a sentiment Grimmjow won’t want. So he says, “That’s just how she is,” and walks past Grimmjow to take the bathroom for himself. 

He stares at the water. It’s normal to take a bath after people. No big deal. Ichigo’s stupid heart needed to get with the program. Stupid. It wasn’t like this was anything more than an injured hollow who needed to heal. This isn’t a sleepover. It isn’t a one night stand. 

Oh god, don’t think about that. 

Do not think about that. 

He scrubs the grime of the day off then takes the fucking bath. 

 

Coming back into his room once bathed, Ichigo feels better. He towels off his hair as he enters and the sight before him stops him short. Grimmjow is sitting on his floor, legs crossed and hands on his knees. Hunching himself over to glare hard at two plates of food while Yuzu sits on the other side of them watching him. 

“What the fuck are you guys doing?” he asks, wondering if he even wants to know. 

Yuzu pops up from her place on the floor. “I was making sure Grimmjow didn’t eat both plates before you finished.” 

Frown. “You guys introduced yourselves?” 

“Ain’t a fuckin’ neanderthal, Kurosaki. Met people before. Tend to know how it works.”

“Yeah, Onii-chan. Don’t be so hard on him.” 

Kill me. “Sure. Whatever. Thanks, Yuzu. I’m sure it’s awesome. 

“It is,” she says, smiling sweetly before she goes to make her leave. “Bring your plates downstairs or no breakfast.” 

“Yes, mom,” Ichigo mutters. 

Then, it’s just them again. 

Ichigo comes over to the plates, stares down at them. Chicken katsu, rice, pickled ginger, and a few steamed buns with likely some kind of meat inside. Ichigo’s stomach growls as he sits down. “You remember the last time you ate this kinda stuff?” Ichigo asks, wondering if it’s too far too soon. He would have asked a question like that anyways even if they weren’t in their current predicament. 

Grimmjow’s staring at it. Takes the chopsticks. He’s clumsy with them and Ichigo tries his best not to laugh so they don’t end up lodged in his thigh, but, he manages. 

“No,” Grimmjow says. Just one word, and with it Ichigo can’t help but feel a sort of ache within him. There’s so many things he wants to know. So much he wants to ask. But it’s been a long day and he knows he has to pace this whole deal if it’s going to work. He can’t force it. So, he doesn’t. 

“Well my little sister is the best cook in Karakura anyways, so it doesn’t matter. Let’s eat.” He takes a bite, and most everything else around him falls away. At first, he hardly even notices if Grimmjow follows suit until he hears a groan. Grimmjow has his lips around the chopsticks, cheek slightly puffed out from the food he’d shoved into it. His eyes are closed as he chews, swallows. 

“Fuck.” 

“That good?” Ichigo’s smiling, just a bit. Pride in Yuzu’s talent. 

Grimmjow doesn’t answer him, just keeps eating. He clears his plate in record time. They both do. And it’s nice. It’s comfortable, somehow, with the buffer of food between them. Grimmjow drops his chopsticks down onto the plate only a moment before Ichigo does the same, and leans his back against the bed. 

“You’ve been in that all day,” Ichigo starts. “The gigai. Didn’t notice any hunger?” 

Grimmjow shrugs. “More important shit on my mind.” 

“Yeah.” 

A silence stretches out before them. Ichigo fills it. 

“I can call Inoue tomorrow. You remember her?” 

Grimmjow narrows his eyes. Takes a second. “Describe her.” 

“You kidnapped her to heal me after I fought Ulquiorra instead of you. Hair a little darker than mine? Probably way too kind for your liking.” 

“...Big tits?”

“I mean…yeah.” 

“Forget it.” 

Glare. “What do you mean forget it ? Did you forget your mask is broken?” 

And for that, he receives another growl. “You don’t fuckin’ get it.” 

“Don’t give me that, asshole. Help me get it then. She’s our best bet to fix this before anything else happens. You know, doubt Urahara laid this out for you, but you can’t stay in that body forever. It–.”

“Don’t want to.” 

“Sure,” Ichigo continues. “Now let me finish my damn sentence. The longer you’re in there, the harder it’ll be to get out. Rukia wore a gigai to come to school with me and her reiatsu started locking up on her or something. I don’t know what version this is, but there’s a good chance that if we don’t get it figured out soon, you’ll be stuck in there.” 

Grimmjow takes a measured breath, grinds his teeth. For a minute, Ichigo wonders if he’s even going to say anything. Then, he does. “How much you know about hollow evolution?” 

“Hang on, can we establish what you remember for real? You kinda remembered Inoue. I’m assuming you’re about to tell me about hollows if I don’t know it. What else? You said it was just me.” Fucking christ why does that sound like he’s bitter over that fact.

Grimmjow stares at him like he’s sizing up someone for battle, but the heat isn’t there. Ichigo wonders if it’s because he’s sated. A predator full was always more agreeable. 

Soft, maybe too soft, but sue him, Ichigo says, “Don’t get pissed at me, but…you can trust me, y’know. Whatever you tell me, I’m not gonna try to use it against you, Grimmjow.”

“You’re pushin’ it with the sappy shit. I’m thinkin’.” 

Ichigo chuckles. “Okay, sorry.” 

After a minute or so, Grimmjow makes this animal-like sound of frustration, shakes his head and grinds his teeth. He rubs his hand over his jaw. The right side. Where his mask was. Ichigo doesn’t miss the way his fingers drag. 

“Meant what I said before. It’s you . That woman was with you . Don’t remember nabbin’ her. Remember makin’ her heal you. Fucker. Let someone else kill you. S’my job.” 

“Yeah, sorry. What else?” 

“The rest, it’s…hollow. Hunger. Black sky. Eat, eat, eat. Then, you .” Grimmjow rubs at his temple, moves his head into his head. It’s cat-like. Strange to watch. “There’s another fucker too. Can’t see his face. Just his damn smirk. Think he…made me like this. The power. The sword.” 

“Aizen,” Ichigo says, feeling chilled somehow. 

Grimmjow frowns. “Past that? Not much. So back to my damn question. Hollow evolution.”

Ichigo shrugs. “I know basic stuff, I guess. Human dies, chain dsintegrates, hollow then…menos? Then, uh…one more after that. Then Aizen’s arrancar stuff?” 

It’s Grimmjow’s turn to roll his eyes. “Menos to adjuchas to vasto lordes. Then arrancar.” 

“Oh.” 

“You know how we get there?” 

Ichigo hates feeling like he’s being tested. But, at least he knows this one. “Yeah. You eat other hollows. Or humans. Or shinigami.” 

“Humans only work at first.” 

“Okay so other hollows then shinigami.” 

He nods. “You know what happens if we don’t eat?” 

Ichigo knows this one too, he thinks. Doesn’t he? Man, he hardly paid attention to all of Rukia’s shittily drawn lessons. “Uh…you…die?” 

Grimmjow hits him upside the head. “No, dipshit. We regress. If you stop eating, you go back to the dark.”  

“Okay…” Ichigo starts, trying and failing to see where this was going. “So, what does that have to do with Inoue?” 

“Gettin’ there.” 

And maybe he shouldn’t have, but Ichigo nudges Grimmjow’s knee with his own and smirks when he says, “Didn’t know you were so long-winded.” 

“Fuck you,” Grimmjow says, but he doesn’t look like he means it. Who would have thought all Grimmjow needed was a hot meal and bath? “You want the reason or not?” 

Ichigo laughs, just a little. “I want it.”

The arrancar’s face falls from the ease that had found its way there, a crease folding itself into the space between his brows. “Can’t remember much on either side, but I’d know that dark if everything else about me got swallowed up. Thousands of voices. Everywhere. Always. Every one of ‘em tryin’ to get out. One body. Nothin’ but screams. Clawed my way outta that shit just to accept help from some fucker who made me his bitch for years. You don’t get shit for takin’ handouts.” 

The sigh that leaves him was all exasperation. “So it’s pride again.” 

“The fuck else do I got? Are you stupid, Kurosaki? Can’t even remember who clocked me. Next thing I know some shinigami is shovin’ me into his basement. That woman heals me and every time I kick your ass after that I’m gonna have this tick in the back of my head wonderin’ if I would’a made it out on my own. Can’t live like that. If I ain’t strong enough to survive, I’ll die. S’how the world works.” 

“It’s how your world works, maybe, but it doesn’t have to.” 

“You like relyin’ on everyone else to solve your damn problems?” 

“What?” The comment catches him off guard. They aren’t talking about him. “No. I mean–I rely on my friends when I need to, but…” 

“But?” 

“But–. Ugh, don’t make me agree with you. You’re being stubborn and stupid.” 

Leaning forward, Grimmjow’s face is anything but joking. His eyes are direct and intense and Ichigo is immediately lost in them. He glances down, full lips that morph into a sneer have never looked so enticing. “Course it’s pride. Sure. Make me sound like a dog who doesn’t know when to take a bone. But I can see it in your eyes. You get it. Even if you don’t wanna. Even if you think you got your little friends to pick you up when you fall down. At the end of the day you can’t count on any bastard but yourself. And then what? You die? Cause you were to busy lettin’ everyone else wipe your ass instead of doin’ it yourself? Fuck no. I’m not gonna let somethin’ like a cracked mask kill me. Like hell. Been through too much for that. But when I come out on the other side I wanna know it was me who did it. That so wrong?” 

And it isn’t. That’s what bothers Ichigo the most. Festers beneath his skin and stings. He knew exactly what Grimmjow meant. The drive to get overcome and to know it was the power of your own body that got you there. He remembers distinctly after Aizen’s defeat, when his reiatsu had been reduced to practically nothing, the way he’d ached. The way, suddenly, Rukia sublimating a hollow for him had filled him with a deep sense of bitterness and anger. He’s sought out the fullbringers for exactly the sentiment Grimmjow was talking about. He needed his power to be his. And he needed it to get him where he wanted. 

Maybe they have more in common than he thought. 

“No,” he says, finally. “I get it.” 

Grimmjow’s eyes widen, just a fraction, like he didn’t anticipate anyone agreeing with him, and settles back. For a minute, they stare at each other. 

“So no big tits.” 

“No Inoue.”

More staring. 

“Is it weird?” 

“Don’t waste my time with vague ass questions. Spit out what you mean first try.” 

“Bastard…” Ichigo says. He gets up from the ground, collects their plates. The inevitability of sleep is an elephant in the room. Though he doubts it’s even on Grimmjow’s radar. “Is it weird being in a human body again? Do you remember any of that? Your, uh…your life?” 

“Heavy. This body.” He rolls his shoulders. “Feels tight.” 

Grimmjow doesn’t answer the second half of the question, and Ichigo doesn’t push. He takes the plates downstairs, cleans up, and manages to avoid his father or sisters. Or Kon. Still no sign of him. If he’s still missing in the morning, Ichigo will be forced to speak to Urahara two days in a row just to track him. He makes his way back upstairs to see Grimmjow faceplanted on his mattress. 

“Hey, asshole. That’s my bed.” 

Grimmjow’s voice is muffled by the comforter when he says, “Thought you were hostin’ me.” 

“Scoot over, then.” 

Ichigo shoves at Grimmjow’s shoulders. It takes a bit more poking and prodding to get the man to move, but he does, and then Ichigo is faced with the fact that move over doesn’t mean get out and that if he acts like it’s a big deal to sleep in the same bed then he’d be the one making it weird. It isn't weird. Just two kinda-enemies sleeping together. Beside each other. In the same bed. Just bros. 

He gets in, yanks the covers out from under Grimmjow’s body and pulls them up over both of them. 

Sleeping next to Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez. 

Guess Ichigo can’t call his life boring anymore.

Notes:

I am realizing this is going to be such a slowburn but man am I excited hehe. Tell me how you liked it? <3

Oh! And if you wanna, I’m on bluesky @slutrock (the best music genre)

Chapter 3

Notes:

IMAGINE seeing me update a fic the literal next day. Did you peep the updated tags? :3c

Morning light filters in through Ichigo’s bedroom window, assaults his eyes and tries to coax them open. He isn’t having any of it. The sun doesn’t tell him when to wake up, and if he wants to turn over and bury his face in the pile of pillows, blankets, and limbs that make up his bed, he–.

Pause. 

Pillows…Blankets…Limbs. 

Limbs.

Ichigo startles awake like a man electrocuted. One of Grimmjow’s arms, slung over his chest beneath the blankets in the night, falls to his lap. A leg is hooked over his own. Heart pounding and praying to anything willing to listen that Grimmjow doesn’t notice what his forearm is now resting against, Ichigo curses his physiology and wonders why boners even have to happen bright and early at–he checks his phone–eight in the morning. No way, he will not be having that conversation. Nor will he be attempting to live this down if Grimmjow wakes up and does notice. Do gigais get boners? They have to, right? He has half a mind to check.

Focus!

Luckily for him, it seems the arrancar is a sound sleeper, which actually catches Ichigo off guard. He looks over, breath catching in his throat. The light is dancing off of Grimmjow’s hair and face, the space between his brows smoothed with sleep. He looks…peaceful. It’s sort of a weird expression to see there. Humanizes Grimmjow in a way he hadn’t thought of before.

Gingerly, Ichigo tries to move Grimmjow’s arm from him, and is met with a sleep-drenched growl and a tightening grip. He sighs, frowns down at the other, and debates poking the man to wake him entirely. He can do that, sure. But how will Grimmjow react to finding out he’s a cuddler in the night? Actually. That’s too funny to pass up. And he’s about to pinch Grimmjow’s cheek to do just that when Kon comes bursting in with a,  

“Good morning, Ichig–AHH!” 

Ichigo startles. How the hell could he not? He flails his arms around to shush the cursed stuffed animal he sometimes calls a friend, but there’s no time for derailing. Kon is jumping up onto the bed–directly onto Grimmjow’s hip as he yells, “When were you going to tell me you entered your slut era!? This is how I’m supposed to find out? I’m wounded! And here I was coming home with a story to tell you!” 

“My what era!?” 

Grimmjow stirs because you’d have to be dead to sleep through whatever the hell this is. And. Okay. Phrasing. It starts with a guttural sound of frustration. That hand tightens again on Ichigo, just for a breath. Blue eyes slit open and…

Ichigo gets gruffly shoved off the bed. 

“Hey!” he calls out from the floor. 

“Fuck’re you doin’ tryin’ to cop a feel, huh?” 

The incredulity in this house. 

Ichigo’s mouth hangs slack, offended and about to start a fight first thing in the morning, but of course Kon opens his fat mouth again first. 

“Hi,” Kon says, holding out a paw to Grimmjow. “Pleasure to meet you. I’m Kon, Ichigo’s better half. Mind if I ask what you’re doing in his bed?” He then looks to Ichigo. “I see a man only has to be gone for one night to get replaced around here.” 

“Kurosaki,” Grimmjow says, staring directly at Kon and squinting the sleep from his eyes. 

Ichigo stands up, rubs at his ass, then yanks a pillow off the bed with the intention of hitting one or both of them. “Yeah?” 

“Stuffed fuckin’ lion is bitchin’ at me.”

“Hey!” Kon. 

“Here, I’ll get him.” Ichigo swings the pillow like he’s practicing for a home run and sends Kon flying across the room. He hits the wall with a small, soft thud before rebounding up. “Where the hell were you last night!?” 

Kon, who looks like he was just getting ready to be offended, changes his tune immediately. “You were worried about me?” 

Ichigo rolls his eyes. “Not anymore.” 

“Who’s the shirtless hunk?” 

“Can you–.” Ichigo pauses, takes a measured breath through his nose. 

“Name’s Grimmjow.” 

Kon screams. “Grimmjow as in the espada Grimmjow as in the Grimmjow who vowed to fight Ichigo until your dying breath? That Grimmjow?” 

“Kon,” Ichigo says, weakly and looking like he’d rather be anywhere but here but most preferably dead. “Stop talking.” 

“He talk about me a lot or somethin’?” Grimmjow asks Kon, not Ichigo. Which is fine. It’s fine. 

“Oh my god, so much.” 

For that, Kon receives another whack with the pillow, which Ichigo promptly follows up with a foot down on his soft stomach. “I’ll rip out all your stuffing and leave you a flimsy little piece of fabric that never sees the light of my body again if you don’t shut the fuck up.” 

Kon coughs, makes a small squeaking sound, but nods and holds up his felt thumb. 

Ichigo doesn’t move, doesn’t step anywhere else, but he looks back at Grimmjow who’s lifting his arms over his head to yawn and crack his back and damn, just damn. “So,” he says. “This is Kon. He’s a mod soul that gets to live in a plushie because he’s a pervert and menace to society.” 

“A pervert and menace to society that sometimes gets to use your body!” Kon turns his head as much towards Grimmjow as he can given the fact that Ichigo is still stepping on him. “I take better care of it. Did you know Ichigo never waxed his balls before me?” 

“You–.” Ichigo pales. 

“Oh, c’mon, you had to have noticed how smooth they were.” 

Another step, this time on his face. “I was going to give you a few hours today too, if you turned up. But now I think I’ll ask Urahara for a stand-in.” 

Kon wails. “You were? No! No, please! I’ll be good! I promise! Let me use it, Ichigo, please! Yuzu promised she’d bake for me next time!” 

And Ichigo knows it’s a little devious of him, considering the bruises from his fight with Grimmjow were sore as fuck today, but it’s what Kon deserves from his entrance. He moves his foot, sighs to make the whole thing believable, and then says, “If you promise to not embarrass me, or commit another crime–.” 

“How was I supposed to know streaking was illegal?” 

“--then you can borrow it while I’m gone today.” 

“Deal!” 

“Where the hell’re you goin’?” Grimmjow asks, finally standing up and blearily looking around for what Ichigo assumes are his clothes. They’re in a pile off to the side, folded. Meaning Yuzu collected them from the bathroom where Grimmjow had discarded them in a heap and washed them. She really does spoil everyone who came through the front door. 

“ We ,” Ichigo clarifies, “are unfortunately going back to Urahara’s unless you remember how to open a garganta.” 

Silence. 

“Droppin’ me off after all?” Grimmjow finds his clothes, walks over and shamelessly drops the sweat pants Ichigo gave him in favor of pulling on his tight black jumpsuit with zippers all the way down. Ichigo dutifully looks away, willing himself to not go red in the face. Another man can change in front of him with no sweat off his nose. Don’t make it weird. Don’t have a quarterlife crisis about any potential feelings, gay or otherwise, that may have been getting pushed down since middle school. Not that he’s ever really had a time in his life to explore that. Did he want to? Not with Grimmjow of all people. Hollow. Not…well. 

Kon says, “Nice ass.” 

Ichigo kicks him away. “No,” he says, finally answering Grimmjow’s question. “But I have an idea that we’re gonna try out and if it sucks, we come back, yeah?” 

Grimmjow zips himself up and Ichigo can’t help but let his eyes linger on the lack of chest scar. And there’s that possessive roil in his gut again. Strange. Weird. It shouldn’t matter. The last thing he should ever care about is whether or not Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez has a scar. He watches as the ex-espada rolls his shoulders, shoves his hands in his pockets and stares down at Kon on the floor. 

“So, what, you eat this thing?” 

Ichigo snorts. “Actually, kinda.” He grabs his phone, types off a message to Urahara detailing their need to get to Hueco Mundo, then tosses it back onto his bed. “Since you made my morning shit, you get a chore, Kon.” 

“You still haven’t even asked me where I was.”

“It was literally the first words out of my mouth to you.” 

“Really it’s like you don’t even care. You just want me as your sexy chore boy, and now even that position is getting filled right before my beady little eyes.” 

“The fuck do you keep comin’ onto me for? Ain’t into stuffin’.” 

Ichigo pinches the bridge of his nose. “I want my room clean. That’s it. Then you can do whatever you want.” 

“Whatever I want?” Kon lights up. “Can I jack o–.” 

Ichigo lets his fist fly just so into Kon’s stuffed chest, ejecting the green mod soul candy. He holds it up between his fingers to Grimmjow and says, “This is his actual body.” 

Grimmjow sniffs at it and Ichigo tries with all his might not to laugh. “Quieter like this.” 

“If I weren’t such a bleeding heart I’d just leave him in bead form.” 

From the small green orb, Ichigo swears he can feel Kon complaining dramatically. But there’s no more time to dwell on Kon’s shenanigans. It’s still early. Early enough that him and Grimmjow should be able to sneak out of the house without alerting every member of the family and thus inciting further nonsense and conversation. They can go out the window. The only issue is, Ichigo can leave his body here, but Grimmjow doesn’t have the same luxury. He doesn’t want to risk wasting time once Grimmjow’s back in soul form. He still doesn’t know how bad it’s going to be when he sees it. Which is one reason he’s not telling Grimmjow all the details just yet. 

Still, he pops the green candy into his mouth, and is immediately ejected from his body. Kon, who takes a sharp breath, winces and holds his ribs. “Ow…did you get hit by a truck yesterday?” 

Ichigo rolls his shoulders, feeling free from injury. “Fist fight. You should see the other guy. Have fun!” 

“Cheap shot, Ichigo…” 

Grimmjow stares between the two of them for a moment. “Fuckin’ freak shit.” 

Ichigo nods his head towards the window. “Think you can jump?” 

“Think I can–fuck you, Kurosaki.” And it’s all the instigating Ichigo has to do. Grimmjow opens the window, judges the distance, and jumps. Gigais tended to be a bit better built for impact, so he seems to land just fine. Ichigo follows suit, only mildly dreading not being able to use shunpo with Grimmjow needing to follow him. The walk is simple. It’s daylight and people stare at Grimmjow as they walk past. He repays them by baring his teeth and muttering various cliche lines like, The fuck’re you lookin’ at? They don’t stare at Ichigo because they can’t see him, which works out just as well. 

They show up to the shop soon after, and Ichigo can’t fight back the heebie-jeebies at having to meet with Urahara twice in as many days. He better get a solid month break after this. Ururu opens the door, hardly peeking around it, then lets them inside without a word. 

“Back again so soon?” Urahara says from where he’s strangely leaned against the wall like he’s been waiting there. 

“You knew we were coming.” 

“How was the sleepover?” 

Ichigo opens his mouth to respond when he reminds himself he isn’t here to remember what kindergarten was like. He’s here for a purpose. A pious one at that. No time for bullshit. Like a gaping fish, he closes his mouth again. Urahara giggles to himself and it’s somehow even more annoying to let him think whatever he wants. 

“Do you have a way to open a garganta?” 

“Kurosaki-san don’t insult me. Of course I do. But are you prepared to fight off every hollow in a ten mile radius once you get there? Grimmjow’s reiatsu will be like a beacon.” 

Ichigo nods. “I have an idea. If it works, sick. If it doesn’t, we’ll be back.”

 He glances over to Grimmjow, looks him up and down. With a flick of his fan, it’s pocketed, and his voice sobers. “What are you scheming?”

“Uh,” Ichigo starts, and wonders when the hell he started making that a habit. “Feeding him, I guess.” 

Grimmjow cocks his head to the side imperceptibly. 

Urahara’s eyes narrow, thinking. “Attempting to mimic the way hollows evolved to begin with?”

Ichigo shrugs. “Aizen stopped them from regressing. He didn’t stop them from evolving, right? Ulquiorra had that second form. It makes sense.” 

“Leave it to you to find the simplest solution to a complex problem.”

A snort. “It hasn’t worked yet. So, we’ll see.” Ichigo looks at Grimmjow who’s frowning in the way that means he’s working through something in his head. “What do you think?” 

There’s something about the millisecond when Grimmjow’s eyes meet his. Makes his breath catch just a little. 

Grimmjow chews the side of his cheek, says, “Might be onto somethin’.”

Urahara glances around Ichigo’s shoulders to smirk at Grimmjow who's standing behind him. “You’re much better behaved this morning, Grimmjow-san.” 

“I’ll rip out your fuckin’ tongue and shove it up your ass.” 

“Ah! There he is! Our wonderfully, friendly, neighborhood arrancar. Good to see your spirits haven’t broken.” 

“Anyways,” Ichigo says with a sigh. “We’re leaving his gigai here. Don’t be weird.” 

“Weird is like an estranged second cousin to me. I recognize we’re related, but more often than not, I choose not to engage.” 

“Uh-huh.” 

Urahara gives Ichigo a device. Small, compact. All he needs to do is focus on his destination and press the button. Easy enough. Ichigo wonders just how easily this technology can be taken advantage of but decides not to dwell on it for the time being. He thinks of the white sands of Hueco Mundo, the tall imposing castle of Las Noches on the horizon, and presses the button. 

Before them, a garganta splits the air. Ichigo looks at Grimmjow who’s wearing a very perplexed and perhaps even pained expression. He doesn’t give the other any time to process or mouth off, Ichigo slams the combat pass to the arrancar’s chest, grabs the hand of his soul form, and leaps through. 

The darkness swallows them whole.

On the other side, Ichigo is met by sand. He plummets out and onto the dune, momentarily forgetting to make a footing. Everything about this place feels and looks exactly the same. As if this were years ago and he was here fighting Grimmjow. The first time he saw his resurrection. Years ago when it seems like yesterday. And it’s strange, strange that walking through a portal to what is essentially the land of the dead would feel nostalgic. But, it does. Reminiscent of a time he wielded a sword more than anything else. When the world rested on his back, yes, but also the one time he had known what he was doing. 

Now, Zangetsu’s weight on his back is nearly unfamiliar, and the pain that brings hits bone deep soul deep. Maybe Ichigo had missed this world more than he’d ever care to admit. Grimmjow gets to his feet beside him, refocusing his attention, and Ichigo is about to ask how he’s feeling when he sees it–the fracture in his mask. 

Grimmjow in pure hollow form somehow manages to hold more menace than the gigai body despite looking identical. Scars and bone standing proud against the dark of the sky. But the top of his jaw is splintered, a crack running straight through. A tooth is chipped, broken in half. And from the split, reiatsu is seeping freely. Ichigo can practically smell it, and feels his gut heat with it, a nearly overwhelming force suddenly taking him over. He grunts, clenches his jaw, and in the back of his mind he feels it, vying for Grimmjow’s scent and power.

His own hollow. 

Mine.

Somehow, when Urahara had told him the broken mask would be like hollow bait, Ichigo hadn’t considered his own nature to be a contender. He’d long since come together with every part of himself. But this felt…different. Hungry, almost. Ichigo forces it back and says, 

“Hey, you okay?” 

Grimmjow turns his face and Ichigo sees nothing but feral mania in those eyes. Blue rings on black pupils, dilated and frenzied. The arrancar opens his mouth, saliva connecting his teeth as he snarls, animal-like. Oh. Maybe this is what Urahara meant. Ichigo has to think fast–to act faster. He moves closer to Grimmjow, hand on his shoulder to ground him and says, “You with me?” 

And Grimmjow fights whatever is coming over him, of course he does. Ichigo watches his teeth gnash and eyes scrunch shut while a growl of frustration grits itself free. Grimmjow’s hands tip themselves in claws of pure black as he digs them into the sand. 

“Fuck…” he manages to grit out. 

“You got it?” Ichigo asks, and for his troubles receives a snarl, but it’s accompanied by a shard nod. Whatever the mask wound is doing to him, it isn’t anything like Nel. Instead of a child, it was just as Urahara said, a reversion to his more feral instincts. The hollow that was the monster of Grimmjow, the one that had clawed his way through the black. 

Ichigo looses a breath of relief and nods himself, moving forward. It isn’t that they have any direction to move in necessarily, but Ichigo looks to the ruins of Las Noches and makes his way in that direction regardless. If they were to run into Harribel or Neliel, either of them very well may have information that could help. And somewhere in between here and there, they had to come across some low level hollows for Grimmjow to eat. 

“How’s it feel?”

Through grit teeth, “Fuckin’ peachy.” 

The scent of Grimmjow’s reiatsu hits his nose once more, and Ichigo can almost see it leaving the other’s body, the faintest distortion. It smells so enticing he feels like he’s going insane. This is weird. Hollow or not, he’d never felt these instincts before. His hollow had always felt separate from him, a being trying to take over at a moment’s notice. Now, it feels different. Ichigo can recognize the desire to rip the rest of Grimmjow’s mask off with his teeth one hundred percent came from his hollow. Yet he craves it from his own stomach. If this is what it truly means to be one with all of his power, maybe he made a bad call somewhere. 

They walk for nearly an hour, and Grimmjow is holding strong but he's flagging. Ichigo can tell in the way the man gnashes his teeth and growls to himself, the way his gait becomes a stalk rather than a walk. And those black-tipped claws don’t recede. 

Maybe there isn’t enough time for what he’d been planning. Maybe his idea was shit to begin with. It sort’ve hinges on Grimmjow being in control of himself. The other is panting, open mouth as he shakes his head to get a grip. It doesn’t seem to be working. And as far as he can see there aren’t any other hollows. So much for bait. And all the while that reiatsu is flowing, spilling out into the air. 

Man, why the fuck does it smell so good? 

Grimmjow staggers, goes down.

“Okay. C’mon, get up, big guy.” He grabs Grimmjow under the arms, hoists him up. It hardly works, and once he’s standing, Grimmjow slashes out and catches Ichigo in the chest. It bleeds easily.“Ow! Dickbag, I’m helping you!” 

But the recognition is flickering. Grimmjow snarls at him, lashes out with his claws once more. This time, Ichigo dodges it, catches his wrist. 

“Grimmjow! Stay with me!” 

“Hell do you think I’m doin’...” He grits his teeth, a full body shudder going through him. Ichigo watches in more than mild horror as grunts of pain sound more like growls and roars.

“Eat me!” Ichigo yells before he can stop himself, and that gets Grimmjow’s eyes on him. That blue gaze falls to his throat, back up, and narrows into a glare. “It’s not a trick. There’s no other hollows for your to eat and you’re losing too much. Just do it, alright? Except, y’know, don’t–don’t kill me or anything just–you can feed off my reitasu. It should work. Other hollows and shinigami, right? Like you said. Then we go back and regroup.” 

That growl reverberates around him as Grimmjow steps closer, eyes roving over Ichigo’s body like a meal. There’s still a tick of tension in between his brows, in the set of his jaw.

“Fight me… for it,” he says finally and Ichigo shoves at him. 

“We don’t have time for that! You want to get worse? Just do it. I trust you not to take it too far.” 

The sentence hits Grimmjow like a shockwave, evident plain as day on his face as his eyes widen. But he doesn’t say anything. Maybe he can’t. Instead, he pounces faster than Ichigo can register and drives them both into the sand. Within the span of a single second, those powerful jaws are on his neck, the juncture of his throat and shoulder, and Grimmjow’s teeth sink into the hilt. 

It feels…It feels. 

They’re laying in the sand, Grimmjow half on top of him, his body arched and clawed hands possessively holding Ichigo down. The mouth on his neck is brutal, the bite tightens. Ichigo feels Grimmjow’s tongue lave against the flesh there and to his surprise, they both groan with it. 

Within him, his hollow bucks and gnashes at being on its back, at being bit, but something about it is making Ichigo dizzy. He feels lost to it somehow, feels his reiatsu melding and twining with Grimmjows. He tips his head back, hands gripping whatever they can of the other. Solid and all encompassing above him. He doesn’t know if this is working. Hell, this is easily the weirdest fucking thing he’s ever done but…fuck if it doesn’t feel incredible somehow. Pure submission in a way he never would have expected himself to enjoy. Kurosaki Ichigo, the one who fought God and won. The protector. World-savior. 

What fucking release it is to be taken and consumed. To give himself up to the void entirely. 

Grimmjow’s jaws tighten, nearly taking a chunk out of Ichigo’s flesh, he works his teeth as if he’s gnawing on it, swallowing. For all Ichigo knows, he could be. Then there’s that tongue again and Ichigo can’t help himself, he moans. Grimmjow meets him, beat for beat, hands roaming down, kneading at Ichigo’s hips like a content housecat, and those sounds coming from his mouth are absolutely sinful. He hears the wet snap and crush of sinew and meat, feels the way Grimmjow devours him, worships him.

Ichigo feels his toes curl, a gasp leaving him as Grimmjow presses him down into the sand. He doesn’t know how long it happens for, only that after a while he starts to feel sapped, weak. His mouth is dry and his head is light, too light. Can he pass out from blood loss in this form? He isn’t sure. But his body begins to sink into the sand, losing its footing, and that’s when Ichigo knows the take is too much. He pulls at Grimmjow’s hair, thinks he says something about stopping. Instead he feels flesh torn from bone. The cry out isn’t pained, somehow. The scent of them together is divine. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, being eaten by Grimmjow. 

If he were to just slip…down… 

Grimmjow’s mouth breaks free of him, bloodied and dripping. He pulls back, eyes all pupils, and Ichigo in his daze reaches up to touch it reverently. His blood. His reiatsu. Used to feed a hollow. It shouldn’t be hot but it’s everything. Ichigo maps Grimmjow’s stained lips with his fingers, drags them over the bone mask–still fractured. And Grimmjow looks down at him with this look Ichigo can’t place. Everything is hazy, wobbly. 

“It’s still…broken…” Ichigo says, out of breath, licks his own lips. 

“Where’s the thing?” 

“What…thing?” 

Grimmjow snarls, one hand moving to grip Ichigo’s face in his hands and yank him into eye contact. “The fuckin’ garganta thing!” 

Ichigo moves into his touch. The pain at his neck is disorienting. It aches, burns. He wants Grimmjow’s mouth back on him and doesn’t stop to think about what an insane thought that is. Something is definitely wrong here.

“Pocket…” 

His eyes slip shut, and vaguely Ichigo can feel his body being moved, a sound in the background he can’t quite find it in him to focus on. The garganta? Fuck, he’s out of it. Maybe it’s worse than he thought. He slits his eyes open as the treatment gets rougher, an arm yanked, and then all of him is moving. Up over Grimmjow’s shoulder. The perpetual night sky flipped upside down. Ichigo’s unfocused gaze falls to the white sand splattered and soaked in red. His blood? 

There’s no time to ask, as the black swallows them again. It only lasts a moment, the steps between worlds, and then the familiar walls of the shop surround him once more.

He’s tossed down onto a floor like spoilt cargo.

“Fix him,” Grimmjow says. The gore still covers his mouth, down his chest, his hands. For a moment, nothing happens.

Then, Urahara says, “Kurosaki-san, if nothing else, you keep me on my toes. Carry him downstairs.”

 Ichigo slips fully into unconsciousness and doesn’t fight it an inch.

Notes:

tell me what you think <3

Chapter 4

Notes:

Peep the tag updates!

Ichigo comes awake in stages to the sound of yelling.

Yeah, that’s about right. 

The first thing he notices, while his eyes are still shut and he’s alone to take inventory of himself, is that he feels like he got run over by a truck. He’s also back in his physical body. When did he see Kon to make the switch? What had– 

Oh. That’s right. 

It all comes flooding back to him, wave after wave of sheer mortification and nausea. Okay, so he’d let Grimmjow feed on him. That was, like, so nice of him. Definitely nothing to piss himself over. And then he’d also just proceeded to act like Grimmjow was fucking him into the sand as he’d done it. And that is. Hm. Less easy to deal with. Ichigo feels his cheeks heat up, terrified to open his eyes lest he be met with Urahara, or even worse, Grimmjow. Though judging by the silence of the room and the crashing sounds outside of it, he’s pretty sure there’s no one in here with him. The worst part is that Ichigo has absolutely no excuses aside from being generally pent up as to why he acted like a writhing, wanton, little hussy. But, maybe Grimmjow didn’t notice. 

Hey, there’s a hope!

Maybe, in Grimmjow’s state of delirious hunger and leaking reiatsu, the hollow hadn’t even registered the fact that Ichigo was panting and moaning like…well he isn’t even sure what like . Considering he’s never…At least not all the way.

Anyway. 

Ichigo slits his eyes open, takes a breath. He’s in a room he’s mostly unfamiliar with but still identifies as one of Urahara’s. And he’s alone. Take him downstairs, is what he’d heard last. Meaning the shop was above him? He doesn’t know how this place works, to be honest. Not that he cares. From outside the door, he hears Grimmjow’s voice, and something within him is relieved at that. 

“Let me in or I take the damn door off,” Grimmjow says, voice gruff and not in the mood to take no for an answer. It’s hardly muffled by the thin door. 

“Kisuke said to tell you to fuck off if you asked.” That’s Jinta. Balls of steel, that one.

There’s a growl from the other side. “So do it, kid. Tell me to fuck off.” 

Ichigo can hear the audible gulp. Jinta says, “F-Fuck off!” 

Commotion ensues. The sounds of a scuffle for sure. Not that Grimmjow can’t body Jinta if he wants. Maybe he’s playing nice. Ichigo can’t imagine that. But there’s no time for whatever the hell they’re doing to last any longer because the next thing to assault Ichigo’s ears is what sounds like a can full of pennies being rattled. 

“Jinta-kun,” Urahara says. “I told you to shake this at him if he tries to enter. He hates it.” 

“Oi, knock that shit off, Kisuke! He’s awake! Quit fuckin’ with me and let me in, or I’ll paint the wall with this kid.” 

“You won’t,” Urahara says, “because I fashioned that gigai to make it impossible for you to hit innocents. Only a stop gap, but effective.”

“You used to be cool,” Jinta says with an indignant pout. “Even said you’d train me.” 

“Fuckin’ doubt it.” 

Urahara clears his throat. “Kurosaki-san needs to be resting.”

Ichigo puts an end to everyone’s misery by projecting his voice when he says, “Kinda hard to rest with a bunch of idiots outside my door.” 

Said door flies open after that. 

Grimmjow’s eyes are on him in an instant, and Ichigo’s drawn to the bare side of his face once more. He hadn’t noticed this before, but the estigma beneath his eyes is still there in either form. Suppose even some cosmetic parts of us are too intrinsic to ignore. Ichigo isn’t sure how to act, he also isn’t sure how much time passed. But Grimmjow comes into the room with a gruff set to his jaw and shoulders and scents at the air as if it doesn’t look bizarre. Or, he probably doesn’t care. 

Urahara says, “How are you feeling? It was increasingly difficult to keep the stray out.” 

“Fuck off.”

“So crass.”

Ichigo swings his legs over the side of the bed and groans with all the force of a headache that feels like a terrible hangover. “Feel like I got hit by a truck.”

“Not an arrancar’s teeth.” 

Growl. 

Ichigo looks up, rubs at his eyes and face. There’s a glass of water and aspirin sitting on his bedside table which makes him suspicious. He takes them anyway. “Yeah. How long have I been out?” The water hits his throat like utter salvation.

“Two days,” Urahara says, matter of fact. 

Ichigo spit takes the water directly at Urahara’s face, who expertly blocks it with his fan.

“Two days!?” 

Urahara flicks the wet off, puts the fan away, and sighs. “Two days, and some healing kido later, yes. I don’t think I have to tell you what a dangerous mistake you made out there, but–.” 

Ichigo shakes his head, cuts Urahara off before he can finish that criticism. “It wasn’t my first plan. We didn’t have another option. We walked around towards Las Noches for too long without seeing another hollow. Grimmjow was–.” He stops, only for a moment, tongue-tied when it comes to any vulnerable exposure of the other. Maybe he shouldn’t care about protecting Grimmjow’s pride at this time, but he’d much rather be on his good side than bad. And, besides, despite them being sorta enemies, Ichigo respects him. Grimmjow had fed from him and stopped. How many hollows could tout that same level of control considering the conditions he was under? “There wasn’t any other choice. I wasn’t going to let him come back worse when it was my idea.” 

“No other hollows?” Urahara says, thoughtful and bordering on non-believing. 

Grimmjow pipes up then. “Not a lick of ‘em.” 

Urahara’s frowning. Which can’t be good. He taps his chin with a pointer finger, eyes flicking between the two of them. “Well, that’s interesting.” 

“It’s not interesting, you maniac. I was banking on that.” 

And Grimmjow says, “Guess your little bait theory was shit, Kisuke.” 

Kisuke.

“Wait–.” Ichigo starts. “I’m out for two days and it’s first name basis now?” He’s not bitter. He doesn’t even care. 

“It seems our little enigma who definitely doesn’t have any memory issues regained a few fragments after nearly killing you.” 

“I wasn’t gonna fuckin’ kill him.” 

Urahara lifts a hand, stage whispers to Ichigo, “He’s very sensitive about that.” 

“Look!” Ichigo says, standing now with enough gumption to point a finger and only sway once from the head rush. “You got all introspective when I said the bait didn’t work. So what happened out there? Why didn’t it? Even I could smell it.” 

Oh no. Wrong thing to say. Both Urahara and Grimmjow’s eyes are like lasers on him. 

“Smelled it?” Urahara asks, and Ichigo internally cringes. He really needs to learn to keep his fucking mouth shut. 

“Can we…forget I said that?” 

“For your virtue, Kurosaki-san, I can for now. But that’s very helpful to me and so hopefully I will have a better answer for you soon. If feeding is your preferred method of healing, it can’t go that far again. Your own reiatsu was very weak when you were so graciously dumped unconscious and bleeding on my floor.” 

“Guess that’s why I feel so fucking hungover.” 

“Oh,” Urahara says, laughing. “No, actually. Kon lost at strip poker last night with us.” 

“I fucking hate you guys.” Wait. “What kind of poker!?” Urahara, the bastard, skips away merrily, leaving just Grimmjow and him in the room. Ichigo sits back on the bed, blows out a sigh. “I’m gonna kill him.” 

“Kurosaki,” Grimmjow says, voice low, uncertain and with a lethal edge. “Fuck did you mean you could smell it?” 

Yeah. Guess it’s fair he can’t be totally out of the woods. And he definitely isn’t going to let himself act like some stupid virgin just because Grimmjow eating a piece of his shoulder turned him on. And he’s also never going to even think a string of words like that again. 

“Yeah, I…dunno how to describe it, I guess.” 

“Try.”

Grimmjow’s tone doesn’t leave any room for argument, as if this isn’t already embarrassing enough. Ichigo looks up at him, rolls his eyes. “I’m literally part hollow, y’know. Or, did you for–. Oh.” 

The silence between them is very tense. For a second, Ichigo feels like he may have stepped on a landmine unintentionally prodding at the memory loss deal. Until he remembers Grimmjow isn’t made of glass. He’s not frowning because he’s offended, he’s frowning because he’s thinking. Ichigo lets him work it out, taps his foot against the floor, bounces his leg. He’s still pissed at Kon for getting wasted in his body and leaving him to deal with the hangover, but it’s comforting to know this isn’t left over from the feeding. 

Grimmjow moves closer, voice low. He says, “Stay still,” and Ichigo listens like his body is primed for it. Which is…another strange reaction. Oh well. If he doesn’t look into anything, then there’s nothing to find. Right? He licks his lips, nervous which is stupid, as Grimmjow leans in closer, sniffs at his hair, his neck. Ichigo feels goosebumps breaking out all over his skin, and he clenches his jaw to ensure no shaky breaths are exhaled anywhere near him. He doesn’t think he’ll smell like a hollow. But, then again, what does he know? Grimmjow doesn’t smell any different in a gigai than in his soul form.

“Hollow, huh?”

Ichigo nods. “You’ve fought it. Kinda. Not all the way.” 

The sniffing turns to a low growl. “Holdin’ out on me?” 

And Ichigo can’t help himself, rarely can. He laughs, a breathy thing that’s more of a snort than anything else. “No way. I didn’t get it down until after our last fight. I’ll show you as soon as you’re better. We’ll fight until we can’t move.” 

“Oh yeah? Tryin’ to butter me up?” 

Ichigo shrugs. “No. But I promised, didn’t I?” Perhaps too playful, he prods Grimmjow in the stomach, where there’s flesh instead of a void. “I know you didn’t forget that part.” 

“Forget that I gotta gut you? Why the hell you think I’m botherin’ to fix this shit, huh?” 

“That’s kinda romantic.” 

It’s out before he realizes what he’s saying or insinuating, left over from the atmosphere between them in Hueco Mundo. Ichigo has the briefest of moments to decide whether he’s going to commit to that comment, or laugh it off. He’s already done enough damage to his image. Then again, who is he kidding? But Grimmjow’s watching him strangely and making Ichigo feel like it definitely wasn’t the thing to say. He should go for the laughing it off part. 

Grimmjow says, “What’d it smell like?” His voice is low, quieter, like it’s just for them. Gone is the usual rough edge of annoyance, and in its place is curiosity with a fair share of suspicion. Ichigo can’t fault him for asking but he also really wishes he could. What the hell is he even supposed to say to that? 

He looks up, meets the others eyes and ensures his expression doesn’t appear as out of his depth as he feels. “I don’t have like, a scientific answer…”

“The fuck makes you think that’s the kind I’d want?”

Ichigo laughs again. “Yeah, that’s fair.” And he’s a coward, deep down. With this at least. Because really, so what if Grimmjow is hot? Body like a god with a voice to match and a smile that knocks him clean out. So what if he’d wanted more than he’d ever have the gall to admit out loud when Grimmjow’s teeth were sunk into his flesh? Grimmjow is Grimmjow. A hollow. A warrior. He didn’t give a shit about romance. 

So Ichigo says, “Just smelled like a hollow, I guess,” with a shrug and tries not to feel the way the lie curdles in his stomach and tastes like ash on his tongue. 

For a moment, he wonders if Grimmjow will buy it, the way his eyes narrow and he leans in just the slightest bit to scent again. Ichigo fights the absolutely insane urge to bare his throat. 

“Can’t smell shit on you like this. Next time, you’re showin’ me.” 

Ichigo nods, smirks to try and move past the strange sensation in his gut. “Next time I’m kicking your ass, you mean.” He stands again, and Grimmjow shoves him back down immediately, the barest uptick of his lip right back. It’s no effort for him, just a single hand shove with his other hand still in his pocket. Ichigo kicks out at him, forcing the man to move back, before he tries to get up a second time. 

“So, do you feel any different? Urahara said you remember more stuff?” 

Grimmjow shrugs, the amusement gone again as quickly as it came. “Mask’s still busted. Even with that crazy shit you call reiatsu.” 

His shoulders pull up a bit, defensive. “What’s that supposed to mean, asshole?” 

“Exactly what I fuckin’ said.” Grimmjow turns, as if to leave the room, and Ichigo follows after him. They need to figure out where they’re going to go from here. If Grimmjow feeding off him helped get some things back, even if the mask hadn’t been restored, it stands to reason that it helped at least a little. Urahara said it went too far, not that it couldn’t go at all. Not that he’s really willing to lose two days every time on the off chance it was actually getting them anywhere. And also unlikely that Grimmjow would accept his help a second time without his definition of earning it. Then again, maybe a fight isn’t such a bad idea. He needs to get back in shape anyway. The gigai would naturally be stronger than his body in its current state, too. A good handicap to give himself to get back in it.

“I didn’t expect a thank you, but a thank you would have worked just fine.” 

It’s the, obviously, wrong thing to say. Grimmjow turns in an instant, arm flying to grip Ichigo by the neck and slam him back into the wall. His teeth are bared, and there’s a fierceness in his eyes Ichigo gets lost in. Hands up to grip at Grimmjow’s wrist, Ichigo says, 

“You’re so fucking sensitive sometimes!”

The grip tightens. “You got any idea how pissed I’ll be if I snap your flimsy human neck ‘cause you won’t shut the fuck up?” 

“I’m so torn on how to take that.” Ichigo struggles, taps on Grimmjow’s wrist. “C’mon dickbag, let go! It was my idea, you don’t have to thank me anyway!”

“I know I don’t gotta fuckin’ thank you!”

“Good then let me go!”

“Maybe I’ll off you anyway just to prove the damn point.” 

Ichigo coughs, taps on the wrist again. “Let go or I’m gonna get dirty.”

“Wh–.”

Ichigo kicks Grimmjow in the balls. The hold on his neck drops immediately. 

Then, he runs like hell. 

 

He makes it outside the shop, not by much, before Grimmjow tackles him from behind and Ichigo finds himself once again with his face in the dirt. Okay, at least he kinda deserves this one. Immediately, Ichigo hits the ground with an open palm, skin protesting as gravel cuts against his skin. He says, 

“I give, I give!” before Grimmjow can get too ahead of himself and start another fight in earnest now. The aspirin is starting to take effect, dulling the edges of his hangover, but it’s nowhere near healed. He’d prefer to not get his ass handed to him again. Ichigo may not be as prideful as Grimmjow, but cut him a break he isn’t a saint either. 

Grimmjow growls low, back by Ichigo’s ear, and damn maybe he needs to speak to a therapist with the way the arrancar’s baritone strikes his very bones. Roughly, Ichigo is freed, and he rolls over with a scrunch of his face and a groan as he wipes debris clear of his cheek. 

“Shit hurt,” Grimmjow said, less accusatory and more shocked as his legs splay wide as if to give the family jewels some room to breathe. Ichigo laughs. How the hell could he not? 

“Told you I was gonna play dirty. No hierro to fall back on now.” He looks over, meets Grimmjow’s eyes. There’s that sun in his hair again. “Think you’ll live?” 

“Long as you’re breathin’, Kurosaki.” 

It’s unintentional, the way a line like that comes across. No one else aside from him would feel a trip in their heartbeat over it. A promise to be killed. Strange how intimate it felt at times. Till death, and all. 

“Speaking of that,” Ichigo starts, sits up before standing again. He cracks his back and squints at the bright sky. “I was thinking about what you said in Hueco Mundo.” Grimmjow is silent, watching. He stands too. Ichigo continues. “We could fight for it.” 

Those blue eyes narrow, likely waiting for the catch. Ichigo simply meets the gaze, raises a brow. He’s not too keen on admitting to Grimmjow that he feels out of shape or that this gives him the opportunity to train regularly again. There was no need to taint the offer. Grimmjow’s eyes dart down to the juncture of Ichigo’s neck and shoulder. Where his teeth had been buried deep. 

“For eating you, yeah?” 

Ichigo shrugs. “I mean, not all the way, preferably.” 

More frowning. The other’s favorite expression, only rivaled by a sneer.

Grimmjow shoves his hands in his pocket, looks off to the side. It’s not backing down, it’s like an eyeroll. “You got any idea what kinda message that sends, Shinigami?” 

“If we fight for it, you earn it. No handouts. And like I’d go easy on you. Hell, you may not even get a bite.” 

Ichigo’s met with a scoff, a shake of the head. Grimmjow walks past him, claps a hand on his shoulder. It’s patronizing somehow. Ichigo gets the distinct feeling he’s missed something, an implication. What other sort of message would this send? Grimmjow didn’t do charity. Easy enough. He’d earn it fair and square. Claw through the black, like he said. Right? 

“Y’know, Kisuke got me thinkin’.” Grimmjow says, a few paces ahead as he looks back over his shoulder. 

Kisuke. Ichigo catches his lower lip between his teeth, bites it a little too hard. 

“Urahara, huh? Talk a lot while I was out?” Not that it matters. Ichigo falls into step beside Grimmjow, the both of them naturally beginning the route back to the Kurosaki residence. Grimmjow smirks, and Ichigo feels his irritation bloom brighter. He’s not playing himself very close to the vest over this first name thing. Grimmjow doesn’t confirm or deny anything about their conversations. He says, 

“Remembered Tequila.” 

Ichigo waits for the rest of that sentence or for a point to it. It doesn’t come. He pushes. “Uh-huh.” 

It’s Grimmjow’s turn to shrug, still not looking at Ichigo. His gaze is catching all around them. On people, buildings, birds. Ichigo wonders what he thinks about them, whether he remembers anything at all about the World of The Living. Tequila apparently. Which is something, Ichigo guesses. It’s also strangely apt. 

“So get drunk with me. I’ll drink your ass under the table for the next bite.” 

It’s a strange suggestion, but one that has Ichigo chuckling despite it. He says, “I’m literally hungover right now. It’s a little harder to agree to drinking.” Though he’d be lying if he said the thought of a drunk Grimmjow wasn’t as enticing as it is weird. He still isn’t used to talking to the guy in any normal capacity. Fighting is always easier. Fighting didn’t tie his tongue, didn’t have him second guessing whatever came out of his mouth. 

Grimmjow shoves him a bit by bumping their shoulders together as they walk. “What was that damn lion’s name again?” 

Oh, that’s a devious plan. Serves Kon right for getting plastered the night prior in strip poker only to leave Ichigo with the headache. And, okay so technically Ichigo had left him first with injuries, but, it hadn’t been intentional. Urarahara’s recount placed Kon, his own dad, and the shopkeeper drinking themselves stupid while he’d been comatose in the other room in soul form. Bastards. Ichigo raises a brow, smiles. He kinda loves that Grimmjow gave him this suggestion. “And he’s a schemer too?”

“ Predator ,” Grimmjow says around a grin, all teeth. It’s different than it’s been since he showed up here with a broken mask. For the first time since the last time they’d fought years ago, Ichigo feels a sense of the Grimmjow he knew previously. All feral smiles and excited instincts. He can’t help but think the expression looks good on him, this one of humored arrogance. It’s more normal. The silent contemplative frowning Grimmjow had been doing prior to feeding on him hadn’t sat right. It hadn’t been him.

“Okay, Predator. We drink–if you win, you get to eat. What do I get if I win?”

Ichigo sees the moment his acquiescence to a new sort of battle piques Grimmjow’s interest, watches his pupils expand and shrink ever so slightly. The arrancar shrugs. 

“What’dya want? Don’t got any lunch money.” 

Ichigo snorts. “Between the two of us, you’re definitely the high school bully. Your every sound is practically in the delinquent dictionary.”

“You’d know a lot about that, Kurosaki?”

“Nah,” Ichigo says, responding to the jab with a laugh and a shake of his head. “When I was little, any kid that tried to fuck with me, and most did just ‘cause of my hair, my best friend Tatsuki would kick their ass. Got to a point where all she had to do was look at them and they’d leave me alone.” 

Grimmjow scrunches his nose. “That’s fuckin’ pathetic. Hell happened to you?” 

And maybe the smile Ichigo gives is a little fake, maybe his voice is too peppy when he says, “My mom died,” but, it isn’t like it’s something Grimmjow will sympathize with. Not that Ichigo wants him too. People always get weird when you talk about dead parents. Like there’s suddenly eggshells all over the floor and every word comes out hesitant. He hates it, always has. People treating him like glass. “So, after that,” Ichigo trails off, shrugs. “Well I fight well enough now, yeah?”

Grimmjow hums a bit, walks in silence. It’s not awkward. And it doesn’t bring the mood down like this topic normally does. It does flare his defenses preemptively, just a bit. His mom has been dead for over a decade now. He’s good with it. As good as anyone can be. But if anyone were to play it off like it didn’t matter, he’d still beat their ass for it. Grimmjow doesn’t do that though. Of course not. Anticipating typical human responses from a hollow is useless. Instead, Grimmjow kicks a rock, sends it flying. 

“How’d she bite it?” 

Somehow, Ichigo hadn’t expected him to care. Perhaps he doesn’t. Maybe it's just curiosity. Not that it matters, either way. But there’s something in the undercurrent of the question unanswered. 

“Eaten by a hollow when I was nine.” 

Silence follows them after that. Ichigo says nothing to break the strangeness. Part of him wonders if Grimmjow feels any sort of semblance of remorse, but of course that’s ridiculous. The odds of Grimmjow even knowing the Grand Fisher back then was extremely low. And even if he had, so what? Hollows eat people. It’s their whole deal. Okay, well not their whole deal but a good majority of it. For Grimmjow, something like that would just be the circle of life, wouldn’t it? 

Ichigo chews his lip, contemplative. It’s weird to be reminded of just how different their two worlds are. The Grimmjow walking beside him in a, for all intents and purposes, human body is a farce, temporary. A hollow still lives within it. Always will. 

He needs to keep that in mind. 

Even if the thought makes him ache for something he can’t put his finger on. 

“If you win,” Grimmjow says, wrapping back around. “Tell you what I remember about bein’ human.”

“Yeah?” Ichigo answers, a softness within him. “Alright. Deal.”

 

“Can hollows even get drunk?” Karin asks from the couch as she plays some fighting game on her Xbox. It’s a little too early to head to a bar just yet, and Ichigo wars with whether or not he should invite any of his friends. He decides against it, even if it feels shitty. Grimmjow isn’t exactly the best at socialization, and he already has no clue how he’ll handle the crowded nature of a bar. Especially the dive Ichigo’s planning on taking him to. And if tonight is going to be fun and easy going, a drinking competition, better to start off simple. If it goes well, he can shoot Ishida a text for next time. 

Or. Maybe not Ishida. Maybe chad. 

“Doubt it,” Grimmjow says, slotting himself into the end of the couch, eyes trained on the television. Ichigo watches this with only mild anxiety at Grimmjow conversing with his family. But he’s not the man’s babysitter. And Karin can tell him where to shove it if anything inappropriate is said. 

Karin sideglances him. “Ever tried?” 

Grimmjow frowns, tenses his jaw. “Might have,” he says with no indication in his tone that it’s open for more needling. Karin doesn’t push it, just turns her attention back to the game. “What do you call this?” 

“Hm?” Karin says, and then realizes Grimmjow staring at the screen. “It’s Street Fighter.” Pause. Slow grin. “You wanna play?” 

Grimmjow narrows his eyes, flicks them between the screen and controller. “Just pressin’  buttons to kick someone’s ass? Shit’s a copout.” 

Karin gets this smug expression on her face that Ichigo knows immediately means trouble. She slings an arm over the back of the couch, crosses her ankle up to rest on her knee. “It’s okay if you’re scared of losing.” 

“Hell did you just say to me, shortstack?” 

And oh, she’s got him hook line and sinker with the way that grin widens. The only person that plays with her on any given day is Ichigo. Yuzu didn’t support the violence, and their dad would lie and say he didn’t want to ruin his baby girl’s confidence by wiping the floor with her. Karin says, 

“Hard of hearing in that gigai too? Maybe you’re losing your touch, arrancar.” She looks over the back of the couch to Ichigo. “Didn’t you say this was one of the best guy’s you’ve ever battled, Ichi-nii?” 

“Karin–.” 

Grimmjow snatches the controller directly out of Karin’s hand with a growl and a grin all his own. “Fuckin’ Kurosakis. Gimme this shit. Start it.”

Ichigo says, “I’m going to shower. No fighting. Oh, and also Karin I’m not buying you a second controller.” 

She waves one up over her head, facing the TV where the Street Fighter versus menu is on the screen. “Already have one.”

Yeah. For now. 

But Ichigo leaves them to their own devices. As familiar as he is with Grimmjow’s fuse length, he’s also relatively confident the arrancar won’t start any issues with his family. And, besides, Urahara restricted the gigai from hitting innocents. He wonders just how much mouthing off Karin would have to do in order to bypass that. 

He takes his time showering, rinses off the remnants of Kon’s fun the night prior. Showing up to a bar partially hungover is already a look he doesn’t want to encourage, but showing up smelling like stale beer is the last thing he’d ever do. He doesn’t really have any going out clothes, not that this location begs it of him. Ichigo dresses in jeans with fashionable holes in them and a button up shirt with sleeves that he promptly shoves up to the elbows. He looks fine enough. Not like he’s going out to impress anyone. He’s going out to get drunk with Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez of all people until one of them pukes, probably. 

What a weird fucking week. 

On his way downstairs, Ichigo is met with a menagerie of curses and fuck yous. He turns into the living room, and stops short with wide eyes. A couch cushion has been removed, and is being used to smash Karin down like meat in a sandwich with Grimmjow perched on top as she struggles. Her legs repeatedly kick out, nailing him in the back. Both of them however are still very much wrapped up in the game. A KO appears, one of the characters wilting to the ground following a flurry of blows and slashes. 

“Get fucked!” Karin yells from beneath the cushion. 

Grimmjow shoves his elbow in the fabric, effectively smothering her. “Cheap shot, pipsqueak! I’ll get your ass next. Load it.” 

If they didn’t have anywhere to be, Ichigo thinks he’d be alright just standing here, watching this. There’s something about it that warms him from the inside out. Seeing Grimmjow get along with anyone is nice, sure, but seeing Karin interact with anyone just as brash as her…it isn’t something she gets very often. 

“Lose to my sister again later,” Ichigo says from the mouth of the stairs. He’s trying and probably failing to not look pleased as punch at them. “Let’s get shitfaced.” 

Grimmjow glances back at him, and Ichigo doesn’t miss the way his eyes catch.  His own heart trips over itself. Predator. He stands up from the couch, fakes Karin out when she pushes the cushion up off herself. She’s laughing. Grimmjow shoves her down once she’s standing, and she bounces twice before just laying there. 

“You’re gonna lose even worse when you’re drunk off your ass,” she says, chuckling. 

Grimmjow smoothes out his clothes, even does that classic greaser hand move over his hair. “Nah. M’ gonna hone my reflexes and eat your flamboyant fucker for a midnight snack.” 

“Vega flamboyantly ran you into the dirt, arrancar.” 

Grimmjow snarls, but there’s no heat to it. And Ichigo can’t help it, he’s soft for this shit. He closes the distance between them, reaches out to tug on Grimmjow’s shirt sleeve. “C’mon, fight with a teenager later.” 

“Eager to lose, Kurosaki?” 

“Yeah,” Ichigo says, and punches Grimmjow in the shoulder with a roll of his eyes. “Can’t wait.” 

 

The bar is shit. 

It’s drafty, some of the lights are flickering and bouncing off the neon signs hung up on the walls long enough to develop their own ecosystem of dust. There’s a jukebox in the corner and, honestly, Madonna’s Like A Prayer reverberating the wooden floorboard set the atmosphere perfectly. To their right, the clacking sounds of pool balls complemented the swift and subtle thumps of darts hitting felt. Man, if there’s anywhere to bring a hollow for his first night of afterlife drinking, it’s here. 

Grimmjow sniffs the air, narrowed eyes flitting between the bar and its patrons. A part of Ichigo wonders if the crowd will be too much for him, but, knowing Grimmjow he’d just try to adapt. Ichigo takes the lead, walks up to the bar and sits his ass down on one of the plush, polished leather stools with a crack that reveals the foam. Grimmjow comes up beside him, leans on the bar with his elbows. 

“Place is fuckin’ filthy,” he says, but there’s a quirk to his lip. 

“Great, right?” 

The bartender sees them, nods and comes over to hear orders over the volume of the place. Some woman with long brown hair pulled up into a high ponytail. Ichigo doesn’t recognize her, which he silently sends up a prayer for. “Whatcha drinkin’, Handsome?” 

She’s talking to Grimmjow. 

For some reason, Ichigo has been expecting Grimmjow to be shit at socialization. Being a hollow doesn’t really beg much for non-violent interactions. But instead of telling the bartender to piss off or growling directly in her face, Ichigo watches him cock a brow, look her up and down, and say, 

“Tequila shot. Two of ‘em.” 

“Both for you?” 

Ichigo interrupts, “He’s with me actually, so, no.” 

The moment it’s out of his mouth, he feels like a fucking idiot for it. He has no claim to Grimmjow. And it isn’t like he even wants one. Right? They aren’t even friends. This strange possessive festering in his gut needs to back off and get lost. Even Grimmjow is giving him a look. It’s smug and as if he’s about to laugh. Ichigo wants to punch it off his face. 

But instead of calling him out for anything, Grimmjow turns back to her and says, “You heard him.” 

The shots are set before them a moment later, lime wedge on the rim. Ichigo takes his, licks his lips preemptively. 

“You remember how it tastes?”

Grimmjow’s nostrils flare. “Can smell how it fuckin’ tastes.”

“Backing out?”

Grimmjow takes the shot, and Ichigo follows right after him. 

 

They’re playing pool an hour and three shots later. Grimmjow has moved on from tequila to a pretty pink drink with bubbles and an umbrella. Ichigo stuck with the road the shots had him on and is nursing a margarita. 

“How are we gonna count the shots if you’re drinking a Cosmo?” 

“First off, Kurosaki,” Grimmjow says, lining up a shot. He sinks two balls in as many pockets. “It’s a Pink Lemontini .”

Ichigo snorts. “And second off?”

“And second off…” Another shot, another ball sunk. Ichigo’s getting his ass handed to him. “I ain’t the one losin’ the home advantage.”

“What does that even mean?”

Grimmjow shrugs. “Human game. And you fuckin’ suck at it.” He sinks another ball and Ichigo is about to ludicrously claim that he’s cheating. 

Instead of doing that, Ichigo finishes his drink and sits on the edge of the table. “Maybe you were kickass at it when you were alive.”

Grimmjow’s eyes snap up at him, maintaining contact as he shoots again. This time, he misses. Not by much. Ichigo is passed the stick and his fingers brush Grimmjow’s. 

“Tryin’ to weasel out your info early, huh, Shinigami?” Grimmjow is close, and he speaks low. Ichigo sways just a bit to the music, leans in. 

“Just making conversation.” He takes a shot next, sinks a ball, and drinks to celebrate. Grimmjow tosses the rest of his pink fun in a glass back directly after. Everything around him feels a little hazy, warm. The alcohol is settling in and doing dangerous things to his cognition. Like, for example, the way he can’t stop watching the way Grimmjow rubs chalk over the tip of his shooter, leaning against the pool table with the lambent lighting on him. He looks good. Looks like he belongs here. It’s almost too easy to envision that. Grimmjow as a human in a dive bar, charming anyone who looked at him with that smile of his and a trick shot. Yeah, he would have gotten anyone he wanted. 

 

They tie in pool. At least, they think they do. Both of them lose count of how many games they’ve played and won after the fifth. Grimmjow has four more Lemontinis and bitches out the bartender the one time she forgets to give him a new umbrella in the glass. Between that and Ichigo accidentally knocking his empty glass off the counter and effectively shattering it, they’re cut off. Neither of them mind, though. They stumble out of the bar, laughing about something. The night is cold, but Ichigo’s skin is warm. 

A stumble brings him down off the sidewalk, over onto the grassy slope that banks the river. Grimmjow falls with him, and it’s only a moment after that Ichigo realizes he’d been holding onto the man’s arm. 

The night sky twinkles above them. Stars and stars and stars. 

Grimmjow says, “I kicked your ass,” but it’s slurred.

“No way,” Ichigo answers. He turns his head to look. Grimmjow’s cheeks are flushed as he stares up, glancing over after a moment of being stared at. 

“You fell off the road, Kurosaki.” 

“I was bringing you down here to show you the scenery, actually.”

“That right?” Grimmjow asks, moving up onto an elbow and orienting his body closer. Ichigo feels something twist in his stomach. 

“Yeah, that’s right. Besides, you can’t eat out here.” 

Grimmjow leans closer, his tongue laving over his lower lip. “Scared someone’ll see you on your back for me?” 

A heat flushes through him. “Phrasing, asshole.” 

Grimmjow laughs, and the sound hits Ichigo low. “Still don’t get it, huh?” 

Frown. “Get what?” 

“Nothin’,” he says, which pisses Ichigo off. “Human questions. Ask ‘em.” 

“Admitting I won?” Ichigo asks with a drunk smirk, momentarily distracted by Grimmjow’s cryptic dismissal of his previous comment. He grins, and Grimmjow growls. 

“Don’t push it.” 

“Why not?” he asks, feeling bold. The alcohol is buzzy, floaty. They’re laying on the grass in the middle of the night and it’s cold, yeah but he’s never paid attention to this many stars. Never had someone else to lie beside him and push back with every shove. 

Grimmjow rises to the bait because of course he does. He gets closer. Their faces are only a sparse number of inches apart. He reaches out, grips Ichigo’s chin in his calloused hands and runs a thumb over his lower lip. “‘Cause I’ll fuck up this pretty face of yours and then what’re you gonna pout at me with?” 

Ichigo balks, but doesn’t move away, doesn’t shrug off the touch. This is uncharted territory. “I have not pouted once, jackass.”

“ He’s with me, actually ,” Grimmjow imitates, exaggerating Ichigo’s tone of voice to the bartender. And now, Ichigo does break the contact. He shoves at Grimmjow’s chest, but it isn’t earnest. 

“Fuck you, I do not sound like that.” 

Grimmjow shoves him back. “Hell if you don’t. Thought you were gonna propose.” 

“You’re such a vain asshole!” 

“So what’s that say about your type, huh?”

They’re both laughing, Ichigo realizes, as two shoves turn into a wrestling match in the grass. It’s fun. His limbs feel loose. And neither of them throw any punches, which is more than he expects. Ichigo has Grimmjow pinned for a moment, but the arrancar flips the switch with ease. They end up with Grimmjow holding Ichigo’s wrists above his head and grinning at him. 

“How many times you gonna lose to me tonight?” he says, leaning in. 

Ichigo has the insane urge to kiss him. 

He fights it off, just barely, panting and squirming beneath the arrancar with a practiced hold. After a brief and futile attempt, Ichigo slumps into the ground, catches his breath. 

“Don’t try to distract me,” Ichigo says, letting his eyes slip shut. The world is spinning in slow motion. “I get the human story.” 

“I get somethin’ first.”

He opens his eyes again. “That’s not how losing works.” Grimmjow ignores the comment, his eyes are focused. Ichigo realizes they’ve fallen to his throat. He should leave it alone. Of course a hollow, with their insatiable hunger, would want to eat again and more. His mask is still broken, the work not done. It makes sense. Doesn’t mean anything else. Still, Ichigo is imbued with liquid courage if nothing else. He says, “You’re that hungry?”

“M’ a hollow, Kurosaki,” Grimmjow says, but he betrays himself by licking his lip. “Always starvin’.” 

“What did it taste like?” he asks before he can stop himself. Grimmjow’s eyes are back on him then. 

“Tell you when you tell me what it smelled like.”

“Bastard.” 

Grimmjow leans down, breathes in near Ichigo’s neck. “Don’t make me ask for it. M’ drunk off my ass over here. Pinned you, didn’t I? Counts for a taste.” 

“Too bad that wasn’t the challenge.” 

A growl reverberates against his skin. Ichigo feels Grimmjow’s lips at his neck. The other opens his mouth, closes it drunkenly against the flesh. A tongue follows. “Fine. Ask your human questions.” 

Oh, this is distracting. They’re both too drunk for this. Or, maybe these conditions are perfect for whatever the hell he’d even call this. Grimmjow’s body on top of his, discussing himself as a meal. It’s strange. It’s all so strange. Years ago, he’d never even imagine speaking to Grimmjow on casual terms. 

“Do you miss it?” 

Grimmjow snorts. “Fuck no.” 

Ichigo frowns. “Not at all?” 

“The hell would I miss bein’ some weakling for?” 

Chewing the inside of his cheek, Ichigo says, “Is that what you think of me?” 

That question must piss Grimmjow off, because he doesn’t answer, just bites in earnest now and causes Ichigo to gasp. Even sober, he’s come to realize he’s weak to this, but drunk he stands no chance. A sound embarrassingly close to a moan escapes. 

“Nothin’ weak about you,” Grimmjow says and it sounds like church, like reverence. 

“No?” He’s met with another growl rather than an answer, and Ichigo wonders if Grimmjow can taste his reiatsu through his human skin with the way he’s mouthing at him. It’s about to make this situation very embarrassing very quickly. Ichigo yanks on the grip on his wrists and feels it tighten. 

Ichigo says, “Grimmjow…” in an attempt at warning but it nearly comes out as a keen. Alcohol is officially dangerous. He needs to get his head together. To pull away from whatever the hell this is before the embarrassment strangles him alive tomorrow. Grimmjow is a hollow, Ichigo reminds himself. He’s hungry, wants to feed. He’s not biting Ichigo’s neck to seduce him. The type of reaction he is having to this will only serve to dig him into a grave. 

“Can almost taste you like this…” 

“Fuck, you gotta watch your mouth.” Ichigo tries to take a deep breath, to think of dead puppies. Anything that will stop his dick from hardening beneath Grimmjow’s hips and sultry fucking voice. 

Grimmjow pulls back, looks at him all pupils. It’s feral and gorgeous and fuck, fuck, fuck, Ichigo might be gay after all. Or, at least like men. Or, maybe not even men. Maybe just Grimmjow. Or maybe that’s the tequila talking. Ichigo can almost smell that sweet scent of Grimmjow’s reiatsu. Like it’s soaked into his skin. 

Definitely the tequila. 

“Lemme hear that sound again,” Grimmjow says, and Ichigo struggles half-heartedly. 

“Fuck off, no way.” 

But, much to his dismay, Grimmjow has always been nothing if not incredibly astute. So of course he knows exactly what he did to elicit that reaction, knows exactly what he’s doing now when he leans in to bite Ichigo’s neck again. Lips sealed around the flesh, Grimmjow sucks hard enough to leave a mark and Ichigo’s mortification is momentarily outweighed by how much that gets him going because he moans again. 

This time, Grimmjow meets him, a groan leaving him as he presses his hips down. Ichigo gasps, hard and obvious, and then there’s a chuckle against his throat. 

“Not a fucking word,” Ichigo says, and curses biology as he rocks his hips up. 

“Actin’ like I didn’t hear you moan for me like a filthy fuckin’ whore with my teeth sunk into you.” It’s spoken against his ear, hot breath fanning. Ichigo’s dizzy with it. Nothing has ever been hotter in his fucking life. And yet, at the same time, he’s reeling from this, knows he should get a grip, to stop this. They’re both drunk. Too drunk. No way this doesn’t end in the most awkward morning after in his entire life. 

But Grimmjow grabs his hip, holds him still and starts to work his own hard on against him and fuck if everything else doesn’t just fly out the window. In fact, feeling that bulge against his own short-circuits something in Ichigo’s brain, and he can’t be bothered to care about being responsible. The last time he’d ever gotten off with anyone had been the saddest handjob of his life during his and Renji’s game of gay chicken. He fucking earned this. 

“You seem to like it enough,” Ichigo says instead of any defense for him. 

The bite moves down, nipping at his collar bone, up to the other side. The grip on his wrists drops, one of Grimmjow’s hands moving to his neck. Breathing heavier, Ichigo shamelessly wraps his legs around Grimmjow’s waist as they both pant with furrowed brows and unbroken eye contact, working toward release. Ichigo remembers the sight of Grimmjow’s mouth, covered in blood. He wants to see it again, taste it, feel it. 

His hollow bucks within him over it, demanding.

He says, “Bite me,” and Grimmjow snarls, doesn’t need to be told twice. Ichigo feels himself getting close, untouched in his pants aside from the desperate way their hips work against each other. 

Grimmjow bites down, doesn’t break skin. 

Ichigo says, “ Harder .”

He gets the picture after that. 

Teeth piercing, Ichigo feels Grimmjow’s cock throb against his own the moment his blood hits the arrancar’s lips. It’s intoxicating, all encompassing to feel every way he can affect someone of Grimmjow’s strength. It makes him dizzy. The tug comes again, but it isn’t as extreme. Ichigo feels the pull on his reiatsu, and gives into it willingly. His own lips near Grimmjow’s ear now, those sounds fall freely, unbidden by shame. Pleasure is the only thing his inebriated mind can focus on. 

“Can’t fucking take it,” he says, desperate as he shoves a hand in between them. Messily, Ichigo unbuckles his jeans, manages Grimmjow’s as well. He’s unpracticed and clumsy, the world on a tilt. “Nothing about this…tomorrow…” Ichigo gets his fingers around Grimmjow where it counts, tries to include himself in that equation. His strokes are needy, the angle not perfect, but it’s everything. Grimmjow is certainly consistent as far as size goes. It’s thick, hard, and hot. Insanely, Ichigo almost shoves the man off so he can see it for himself. 

Grimmjow responds, more animal than man. His snarl goes low, nearly a purr, hips fucking into Ichigo’s hand and doing most of the work for them. The feeling of flesh sliding against flesh makes him dizzy, and the bite and suck on his neck is hurtling him towards the edge. 

Ichigo comes between their bodies, overcome and whited out. He sinks his teeth into the juncture of Grimmjow’s shoulder just to stifle the volume as his body jerks and his cock spills. Grimmjow’s right behind him. Ichigo feels the way it pulses, hears that purr turn into something rabid and for a moment, Ichigo wonders if a chunk will be ripped out of his human body as well. 

But it isn’t. 

Grimmjow pulls back, mouth dripping with blood, feral.

Ichigo pushes himself up on his elbows, licks it off before he has a moment of lucid thought to stop himself. It tastes fucking divine. 

And when Grimmjow crashes his lips against Ichigo’s, all teeth, he stops worrying about what tomorrow will bring.

Notes:

Ty to the conversation in the OG GrimmIchi server that brought Grimmjow downing fruity little drinks with umbrellas in them to my attention. Did you like it? Let me know <3

Chapter 5

When Ichigo wakes, it’s to the brunt force of a hangover to rival all hangovers, and an impending sense of utter dread. He clenches his jaw, brows furrowing against the onslaught of pain in his temples, behind his eyes, the nausea roiling in his gut. And before he can even squint into the light of his bedroom, the rest hits him as well. Mortification, to start. The hazy memories of Grimmjow’s mouth on his, the feeling of him in his hand, the sounds–jesus christ he could combust on the spot. Just go up in flames and singe a him-shaped hole into the mattress. He’d rather do that than confront Grimmjow, anyway. An easier road to walk for sure. Only… 

He’s alone. 

Against his migraine’s pleas, Ichigo opens his eyes and sunlight strikes him like a lance through the retina. He winces, groaning a little as he sits up and rubs at his eyes. The bed is empty, save for him. No sign of Grimmjow beside him, and the little pang that sends through his chest is just the remnants of what would likely be his biggest mistake for a long time to come. What they did last night should not have happened. And in fucking public no less. At least the side bank of the river wasn’t directly visible from the streetline, but if anyone had been out for a leisurely three in the morning stroll, they would have been arrested for public indecency immediately. Idly, thoughts of mug shots float through the foggy muck of his brain, which he promptly shakes free. 

And then there’s rattling in his closet. 

Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, Ichigo tries to push down any anxious thoughts. It isn’t like Grimmjow can go anywhere, not really. Sure, technically he’d be able to skulk around Karakura and potentially harass the passersby when they look at him funny, but the stopgaps on the gigai would prevent any real harm from being done. He’s probably up on the roof or something, waiting for Ichigo to wake up to deck him in the face for getting handsy. Then again, it was the hollow who’d kissed him. If you could call it that. It was more like a slamming together of teeth and bloody lips. Not that he minded, but, well…

Anyway. 

The rattling happens again, and Ichigo sighs loudly with a, “Quit letting yourself get locked in the closet, Kon.” He yawns, standing and stretching in a way that cracks his back in several places. The last few days, the mod soul had been acting strangely. He went missing the night Grimmjow was found, and has been really up in the guy’s business. Ichigo chalks it up to not having seen his two favorite women–Inoue and Rukia–in longer than was probably fair to him. But something nags at the back of his mind. He opens the closet door. 

Grimmjow sits before him, tied up, gagged, and wide eyed, thrashing against haphazard yet firmly secured restraints. 

“What the fuck!?” He makes quick work of the gag first–just a shirt tied around his head and slotted in between the man’s teeth like a horse bit. Did he somehow manage to drink enough that he’d forgotten literally tying Grimmjow up in a closet? And did Grimmjow really drink enough to let him? Ichigo is about to ask what the hell happened, but the moment the fabric comes out of his mouth, it’s apparent that this situation is more fucked up than he thought. Because Grimmjow says, 

“Oh, Ichigo! It’s horrible! He blindsided me!”

Ichigo? And suddenly, Ichigo isn’t looking at Grimmjow–he’s busy with his psyche breaking trying to rationalize the string of words that just left this gigai’s mouth. Because that isn’t Grimmjow, it’s… 

“Kon!?” 

The rest of the ties come next, and when his arms are free, the Grimmjow who isn’t Grimmjow, it’s Kon in Grimmjow’s gigai and what the fuck, falls forward with his palms on the ground, gasping. Ichigo feels his insides curdle at the sight before him. Kon should not look like this. It’s already bad enough that he looks like him most of the time but at least that was standard procedure at this point. Honestly, sometimes he considers asking Urahara to just make the poor guy his own body but then, in the privacy of his mind, Ichigo admits he’d likely go insane if Kon was ever in a form he couldn’t punt across the room on a whim. But that’s beside the point right now. 

“What the fuck happened?” he demands, shaking the gigai’s shoulders. “Where’s Grimmjow?” 

Finishing his dramatics, Kon wipes saliva from the corners of his mouth, and looks Ichigo in the eye. “ Where’s Grimmjow is your first question? What about, Are you okay, Kon? Y’know, Ichigo, it’s really never up for debate where the priorities lie with you, is it? I have half a mind to be hurt.” 

Ichigo takes the span of a breath to conjure some patience in between the throbbing of his mind and neck. Wait, his–. Oh. As if telepathically linked, Kon’s eyes move to the spot in question. He doesn’t need to see it himself to know it looks like a fucking warzone and likely needs some disinfectant. Did gigai mouths have bacteria? They had to, right? They could eat, and everything else. Had to have bacteria for digestion… Okay, getting off topic. He slaps a hand over his neck and winces at the pain, skin angry hot and mottled beneath his touch. Kon smacks his lips, whistles low.

Ichigo looks away before he can answer because you try looking at the admittedly hottest hollow you’ve ever seen knowing there’s a touch-starved and perverted mod soul inhabiting it. If Ichigo so much as glances wrong, he’ll get a proposition. He says, “Me asking what happened is checking on you, dumbass. And you’re fine in that body anyways.” 

Grimmjow’s voice whining, and his face pouting are not things Ichigo ever wanted to see. But Kon does both of them when he answers with, “I was in there for so long. I thought you’d never wake up. Nevermind the mauling on your neck, this is about me.” 

Ichigo deadpans. “You could have made a hell of a lot more noise then. When did this even happen? And, again, for the third time, what happened!” 

Kon collects himself, all limbs and hands and arms that were touching Ichigo not twelve hours ago, holding him down in the grass while they laughed, drunk under the stars. God he wants to die inside at how embarrassing that is. Grimmjow couldn’t even safely be called a friend let alone anything…more. These past couple days were the first he’d ever even spent with the man outside of combat.

Clearing his throat, Kon says, “So, there I was.” He swipes out a hand for effect, and in not having the bearings of this body yet, smacks Ichigo in the chest. “Sorry–so there I was.” 

“You said that already. Just get to it.” 

“Jesus, Ichigo. Have some whimsy in your life. It can’t all be just arrancar eating your neck.” Deep breath. Kon continues. “No comment?” 

Another deep breath. Ichigo says, “ So, there you were?” 

“SO THERE I WAS! Minding my own business, as I do, when all of the sudden–your lover-by-dark–”

“My what– !?” 

“–Catches me off guard on my way back from Yuzu’s room where we had finished having just the loveliest tea party, Ichigo, really, you should have been there, the scones! Anyways, he grabs me while you’re in the shower. And then next thing I know, he’s putting me in his pocket! Just my little bead at his whims, Ichigo! Do you know how scandalous that is?” 

“Pause,” Ichigo says, and holds up his hands. He’s squinting through his headache and trying to put everything together. While he was…in the shower? But that would mean… “He grabbed you before we left?” 

Kon nods, shasaying Grimmjow’s hair along with the motion, bangs falling into his eyes. “Oh, yeah.” 

“But…if you were in his pocket…”

“Ohh, yeah.” 

“...the whole time…” He’s getting woozy. 

“Ohoho yes , Ichigo. I was there.” 

And weakly, in the midst of his face heating to a degree hitherto undreamt of, Ichigo manages to say, “I’m gonna kill him.” 

“He’s really kinda good at flirting, too, isn’t he? I was shocked, honestly. And man have I never thought to use your vocal cords like that before.” Ichigo punches Kon in the solar plexus. The mod soul coughs and holds up a finger. “I deserved that. But it wasn’t my fault! I can’t just turn off my ears!”

“You shouldn’t have ears in that fucking bead form!” Ichigo is standing now, fueled by the absolute mortification of it all. Whatever Grimmjow’s plan was, Ichigo will break the rest of his mask on principle. Even the concept that Grimmjow ditching the gigai means he’d have to be in his natural form and that meant all of their work the last two days being undone doesn’t mean shit to him right now. He’ll find him, and kill him. 

Kon pushes himself into a stand, dusts off his knees. Ichigo notices now he’s dressed just in those same baggy sweatpants and no shirt. So Grimmjow stole Kon as an out after he saw how it worked, kept him in his pocket throughout their entire bar ordeal, waited until Ichigo was piss fucking drunk, and then used it to escape the gigai. No, it’s further than that, isn’t it? And Ichigo should have known it. The moment Grimmjow saw him pop Kon in his mouth, he would have logged it away to use for later. He said as much, didn’t he? 

Just tell me how to get the hell outta this fake meat sack, and I’ll be gone.

All he needed was…A distraction.

So get drunk with me. 

Yeah, he’s going to kill him. 

“Look,” Kon says, and Ichigo glares up at him for the patronizing tone of voice the mod soul has taken. “You can be embarrassed. I get it.” He nods, the picture of feigned wisdom. “But, since I’m here and all…” 

Ichigo sighs, pushes himself up from the ground as well. The day’s just started and it’s already a heaping pile of bullshit. Yeah, that sounds about right. “I won’t kick you out of the gigai but if you’re weird about it, my body’s off limits for the next two months.” 

Again, Kon makes Grimmjow’s face into a pout and Ichigo’s lips pull down in disgust. “So, what can I do?” 

Ichigo shrugs, moving throughout the room to find something suitable to wear. “You can start by taking a damn bath to get my blood off your mouth.” 

“Your–.” Kon stops, licks his finger and smears it over his lips, pulls it back and actually has the audacity to grimace at the rusty remnants. “Do us both a favor, Ichigo. Get some antibiotics from the clinic before you go anywhere. And… make sure your tetanus shot is up to date.” 

Shirt pulled overhead and relatively clean pants zipped, Ichigo tosses a wave over his shoulder as he moves to leave Kon standing in the middle of his room. “Don’t try anything stupid. I’ll be back soon.” 

“Not too soon!” 

Ichigo ignores the plea, makes for the bathroom where he soaps up his neck and shoulder with a hiss. It stings like a bitch, the angry crescents of broken skin. Bruises pathwork the bite marks together. He looks like the victim of a zombie attack. But the stinging wears off after he applies a bit of ointment and a bandage. And if Ichigo Kurosaki dabs a bit of Yuzu’s foundation around the edges of the whole thing, no he didn’t. 

 

He’s not even out of the house before a notification dings through on his cell phone, and Ichigo feels his heart kick into high gear. It’s stupid, being worried about an arrancar–wait, is that what he is? Worried? He’s also pissed. Like, a lot. Super pissed, even. And he’s serious about punching Grimmjow in the face the second he sees him for making him look and feel like a total fucking moron, but–ultimately, what’s the worst that can happen? Grimmjow’s already dead. And on most days, halfway rabid too. It isn’t like he faces the threat of regressing. That was all done away with when he’d become an arrancar in the first place. The use of the hogyoku granted them all more power, yeah, but it also held their state. At least, he swears that’s what he remembers learning. To be honest, back then, he’d really only paid attention to what was immediately relevant. 

Oh well, he’d find out soon enough. 

Turns out, the notification is from Urahara, and it comes with the mildly threatening message of: There’s someone at the shop for you! What color do you think best represents a missing Hollow? Is it an Amber Alert if he was in your custody? 

“Give me a break…” Ichigo mutters to himself as he walks the well-known distance between his home and the shoten. What the hell is an amber alert anyway? Something for American girls? He’d never met anyone named Amber. Back on track. It doesn’t take long to get there, and when he does, Ichigo half expects to see Grimmjow, snarling and frothing at the mouth while his reiatsu leaks out like smoke from a chimney. But he doesn’t. Instead, somehow, it’s more concerning. 

Nel is sitting at the small table, a cup of steaming tea in her hands. The moment she sees Ichigo, her entire face lights up like Christmas, and she’s leaping out of her seat so fast it’s a wonder she doesn’t send the table flying with it. As it stands, the tea barely survives. 

“Ichigo!” she cries out, flinging her arms around him and jumping up. He catches her so they both don’t go crashing down, Nel’s legs fastening themselves around his waist as she pulls back to look at him. “Urahara-san said you’d come running as soon as he messaged you but that was super fast.” 

Ichigo deadpans. “I was already on my way.” His hands brace her body by holding under her thighs, and it’s only a moment or two before there’s a certain heat to his face as he realizes how it looks. He tries to set Nel down, only for her to hold tighter. A little yanking, and she clings to him so hard that her face is buried in his neck. 

“Oh, Ichigo, I missed you so much! How come Grimmjow gets to see you all the time and I don’t, hm? Do you forget about me?” 

“No, I–.” He tries a different hold, leans his face back. “I hadn’t even seen him for a while either. Nel–get down I can’t carry you like this.” 

From behind her, Urahara chuckles behind his fan. “The arrancar are all such fans of you, Kurosaki-san.” 

“Sure,” he says, physically extracting the fully grown woman from his body. She fights him a bit more but she’s giggling like it’s a joke, and Ichigo can’t help but wonder just how much of her remains childlike despite the appearance. Once she’s down, he looks to both of them and says, “Okay, so where is he?” 

Nel bites her lip, glances to Urahara then back to Ichigo. “In Hueco Mundo,” she says as if guilty somehow, and that’s probably the worst possible outcome. With his mask broken, Grimmjow would be vulnerable whether he admits it or not. But, he guesses there’s nowhere else the guy would have gone. Still, Ichigo’s frustrated. 

“How did he get there?” A turn to Urahara. “He didn’t remember how to open a garganta.” 

Urahara shrugs. “Perhaps the..ahem… meals you two shared helped bring that detail back.” 

Nel blinks, a bit confused. “Meals?” 

“Hang on–,” Ichigo starts, before this gets out of hand and before his embarrassment is back in full force. “Nel, why are you even here?” 

“Grimmjow has been gone for the last few days–Harribel-sama doesn’t mind, not really. In fact, Grimmjow being gone means there’s mostly less of a headache for her since he tends to be a little destructive. But, a few hours ago, we felt him come home.” She pauses, chews her lip and rocks forward on her toes. “Except…hm…well, really not himself.” 

“His mask is broken,” Ichigo supplies, ignoring the small part of him that flares in defensiveness. 

Nel purses her lips. “I know. I saw. His reiatsu was flaring so wildly and strange, I thought there was something wrong. But, when I found him, he tried to attack me. Honestly, didn’t even seem like he knew who I was. So, I thought you could help. But, I didn’t know where to find you first, of course. That’s why I came to Urahara-san.” 

Ichigo grinds his teeth, irritated. If Grimmjow wasn’t so fucking stubborn, this could have been avoided. Now he was going to be worse off than when this began. “Stupid prideful fucking bastard…” he accidentally mutters out loud. As his mind races a mile a minute, Ichigo absent-mindedly rubs over the wounds on his neck. Man, they hurt. He kinda forgot what it was like to be genuinely injured in his human body without Inoue right there to patch him up. Did that mean he’d lost his edge? Nah. 

“Oh…” he hears Nel say, quiet and concerned. 

Ichigo looks up at her, and sees her eyes transfixed on his neck. That heat in his face is back again, and Ichigo flattens his palm against it as if it’s hiding anything. He really didn’t want to talk about that. Whatever it meant–which was nothing. And besides, he bandaged it.

“I’m fine,” he says instead, and Nel locks eyes with him again. Her facial expression changes, just a bit, but it’s there. Something like horror. 

“Ichigo…you didn’t let Grimmjow…feed off your reiatsu, did you?” 

He tongues over his teeth, sucks and smacks his lips with a sigh. “If you want to tell me it was stupid, get in line. I already got it from Urahara.” 

She does glance at Urahara, her lower lip bitten. And there’s something else there too that is throwing Ichigo for a loop: a dusting of pink across her cheeks. 

“And you…don’t know how that looks to a hollow, do you?” 

Annoying. “Like eating? Isn’t that normal for you guys? Grimmjow told me years ago it’s how he got his fracciones. They all asked him to eat a piece of them, or something. And it’s what you had to do to evolve to begin with, right? So who cares?” 

For a moment, Nel looks uncomfortable. She glances away from Ichigo but her eyes keep darting back to his neck. “It’s…well, it’s just…honestly, Ichigo, it’s sort’ve intimate , I guess you could say. 

“ Intimate! ?” 

You got any idea what kinda message that sends, Shinigami? 

She smacks her lips. “Yup. But, that’s not important. Harribel-sama asked me to handle today’s Grimmjow situation. And now I’m sure you’re gonna do better than me. So, will you come with me, Ichigo? I’ll take you to him. He’s super easy to find right now, but you’re not very good at tracking reiatsu, right?” And there, as if she’s trying to distract from that weird ass bomb she dropped, Nel gives him a teasing smile. 

Ichigo rolls his eyes. The truth is, she’s right, but something about it miffs him in a way he can’t describe. Like he has the insane urge to say he’d be bad about finding anyone except Grimmjow. Like he’d be able to scent him out anywhere, always. And that’s honestly a disturbing train of thought whose origins he’s unaware of. But instead of saying any of that and risking getting even more strange looks, he gives Nel one of his award-winning please don’t notice my insides are curdling and instead believe me when I say everything is fine smiles and says, “You’re right. Let’s go get him.” He scratches the back of his neck, sheepish. “I can’t open the garganta on my own anyway.” 

Nel links their arms, unzips the split between worlds, and just as they’re stepping through, Ichigo says back over his shoulder to Urahara, “Get Kon to come over so the gigai is ready when we get back!” 

“Kon-san is–?” But Urahara doesn’t get to finish that thought before they’re stepping through the void, blackness closing them off from the world of the living. 

Together, they step foot onto the never ending sands of Hueco Mundo, and Ichigo feels a roiling in his gut. There’s something in the air here, a trail of a scent that has him honing in and wanting to curl his upper lip. In the pit of his stomach, he feels his hollow gnashing, begging for release. Ichigo takes a steadying breath through parted lips, attempting to push it down. 

But Nel is staring directly at him. 

“You can feel him, right?” 

Again, his hackles raise, a scowl painting his face. He doesn’t normally get testy with Nel, not sure what’s influencing it here either. Still, he ignores the question. “Do I even want to know what you meant back there?” 

She looks around them, almost wistful. Crystalized reishi surrounds them, creating the dunes and sparse shrubs. It’s strange how such a desolate place has become so well known to him. The first time he’d been here, it had seemed like purgatory. An endless expanse of nothing, crawling with dead monsters waiting to eat you. Now, well, he isn’t quite sure what’s different, just that it is. 

“Hollows are primal things,” she starts, and moves to start their search in one direction. Ichigo reaches out, grabs her elbow gently, and with a jut of his chin is redirecting them, just slightly, towards that scent of sweet musk. Nel doesn’t have the best poker face, she gives the faintest smile, and Ichigo knows he’s been had. “Gotcha,” she says. And now that it’s out there that Ichigo does in fact feel Grimmjow’s presence, they begin their walk in earnest. 

“Just…explain what you meant,” Ichigo says with an eyeroll. 

She shrugs. “We’re like animals in a lot of ways, Ichigo. Especially before we evolve. You’re right about what you said–hollows eat each other all the time. Grimmjow’s fracciones were halted in their Adjuchas stage. Not strong enough to make the jump to Vasto Lordes. They offered their bodies to Grimmjow to sorta…help him along. They believed in him, and because of that offer, were loyal. All fracciones are like that. Pesche, Dondachaka, and Bowa Bowa are like that for me. But it’s a little different once we became arrancar. That fear of regression is gone. That need for more and more power, it dwindles–not for everyone, of course. But you see the difference is that fracciones were weaker hollows, giving themselves up to strength.” She pauses, thoughtful. “Do you get it?” 

And he doesn’t, not really. He may have a hollow inside him, may have grown to a point where that strength and that entity is no longer an other but an aspect of him. But…there’s still a disconnect. He’s only ever felt that primal nature that Nel’s talking about once, when he’d fought Ulquiorra. And even then, it’s all fragments. He barely remembers it. Didn’t even feel like himself. When he fought Yhwach, it was different, they were one, but it hadn’t felt all consuming. No animalistic nature that he can remember. And he wants to say he doesn’t understand what makes any of that intimate but, then again, his reaction to the whole thing obviously outed him. 

Nel must see everything plain as day on his face, because she giggles. 

“I kinda like that I have to spell it out for you. You can’t be perfect, after all. And honestly I think the best men are the ones who are a little dense.” 

“What the hell?” 

She giggles again. “Sorry! What I’m saying is, your hollow isn’t weak. Certainly nowhere near a fracciones. You’re strong, Ichigo. And strong hollows don’t just roll over on their backs for others. To give yourself up like that…to trust another hollow to eat from you without killing you? It’s unheard of, outside of…well a mating bond.” 

He stops walking.

The fact is, this is news to Ichigo in more ways than one but the first thing his mind supplies is, “Hollows mate?” And maybe it’s said a bit too incredulous to really be polite, but whatever. What he and Grimmjow did was strictly for scientific purposes, anyway. With the express goal to heal his broken mask. There wasn’t anything…like that…about it. And so okay maybe he’d had a strange reaction to it, but a lot of people were into biting! Ichigo himself didn’t even have enough experience to say whether this was abnormal or not but he’s watched porn. He knows people get into weird shit. Biting was low on the list. Right? And he wasn’t… bonding with Grimmjow over it. Clearly. The man ditched him, after all. 

Nel makes that face at him again that reminds him of her men being dense comment and causes him to further frown. She pats him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. It’s his fault for not telling you. And I don’t know if I blame him entirely…I bet you would taste really good.” 

The beast inside him bares his teeth, and Ichigo finds himself stricken by it, confused. When Grimmjow had gotten close to him, scented near his neck, Ichigo had felt the oddest desire to bare his throat, to coax him closer. Nel’s remark, however, makes him feel like hissing. What the fuck. How did he manage to have a hollow inside of him for this long without realizing any of this? Without being informed at all? It’s irritating, feeling out of the loop. Then again, it isn’t like it matters. So maybe hollows didn’t typically do this. Okay. That didn’t mean it had to be weird between them. A mating bond? Like, what the hell did that even mean? 

You didn’t fuckin’ ask, y’know, Zangetsu offers as if it’s helpful, and Ichigo winces at the sudden intrusive voice. 

“…Thanks,” Ichigo finally manages to say as they walk. He doesn’t want to talk about this anymore. It’s making his skin feel itchy. He just wants to find Grimmjow, kick his sorry fucking ass, and drag him back to Urahara to be put back in the gigai. 

That all, King?

“Shut up…” Ichigo says aloud and then calmly counts to five in his head when Nel gives him a strange look. “Sorry, not you.” 

“Oh, right,” she says, nodding. “Everyone else that’s around us.”

Ichigo shoves at her shoulder, trying to be annoyed but somehow with a bit of a smirk. “Exactly. You get it.”

In the distance, he starts to hear it: the telltale sound of a hollow’s scream. It isn’t Grimmjow, but others. Low level yet ravenous things. In front of them, he watches as a small beast fights its way out of the sand and tears off over the dune, chasing something out of sight. Ichigo’s brows knit together. 

Nel says, “Even if you couldn’t sense him, you’d be able to follow all the hollows his reiatsu is attracting.”

“Hey,” he says, suddenly. “At the risk of incriminating myself here—do you smell it?” 

Nel laces her fingers together behind her back, stretching and gazing up at the sky. “Mhm. It just reminds me of dark places, I guess.” 

Dark places. Ichigo wonders if, in asking the only person around who would know, he found a way to be a bit inconsiderate. After all, Nel’s mask breaking had been a violent betrayal. It makes sense that the scent wouldn’t be enticing. Still, he asks, 

“What does it smell like?” 

She bites her lower lip, a smile barely contained. “Like I want to bury my face in it. Like it’s the best thing I’ve ever smelled, and if I caught wind of it from anywhere, I wouldn’t stop until I found it.” 

Zangetsu’s voice inside his head warns, Careful. But Ichigo looses a breath, relief flooding in veins. “Fuck. Thank god.” 

She gazes at him. “Does that sound right? About how it smells for you?”

He nods, swallowing thick. “Yeah. I just felt insane.”

“Well…it’s too bad I lied!”

Man, you never fuckin’ listen to me.

I said shut up, bastard! His brows furrow, confusion painting his face as he looks at Nel. “Huh?”

“It smells like burning meat to me. Something I could eat if I really wanted, but I don’t want to.”

“Then, what the hell—? Why fuck with me like that?”

She shrugs. “Sorry, that’s just how I’ve always heard it described. For mates, I mean. And I figured you’d be embarrassed and want to keep it a secret if I couldn’t relate to you. Forgive me?” 

“That’s—,” he starts, and then stops. “Actually underhanded as hell, asshole.” If the people he thought he had an understanding with could do him a favor and stop trying to pull one over on him, that’d be great. “And anyway, that’s not what this is. I don’t even know what the fuck that means. But maybe say it to Grimmjow when we find him. I’m sure it’ll go over well.”

“I almost feel a little bad for them,” Nel says. “Unless he’s really lost it, Grimmjow will be able to eat them all no problem.”

The frown turns deeper. “ This was my first idea,” he says as they make their way up an incline. “I took him here to let him eat a bunch of weaker hollows, like it may heal the break, you know? But there weren’t any. We were out here for over an hour and not a single hollow showed up to take the bait. So why are they here now?” 

Nel blinks those big eyes at him, tilts her head. “You were here with him?” 

Ichigo nods. “Yeah. And I—.” He blows out a sigh as they come up to the top of the dune. “I ran out of options. He was getting worse. And it was my idea. I just…said the first thing I could think of to… help.” 

He trails off the second his eyes take note of what he’s looking at over the sand. A while off still, there’s an enormous tangle of hollows. Their screams echo in the perpetual night, horrid and awful and hungry. It’s difficult to make out where one stops and another begins, white limbs and claws thrashing out of the sea. Ichigo can’t see Grimmjow, but he knows in his bones that he’s there. And within him, his veins begin to burn. Heart seizing at the sight, he moves to rush forward, mouth opening to tell Nel the same, but she speaks first. 

“Ichigo—.”

He doesn’t give her a moment, grabbing her wrist and starting a sprint down the decline. His heart is racing, thundering in his rib cage. He’s never been worried for Grimmjow. Never once. Nearly killed the man multiple times and concern never went through him. He didn’t need to be. Grimmjow is strong, he’s always been strong. Strong and brash and witty and smart. He can handle himself. Of course he can. Ichigo knows this. He knows this as an intrinsic fact and not even as something to console this strange sensation. But there’s something else there, and as a snarl from the depths of his chest comes up with a vengeance, Ichigo sees no reason to hold it back. He’s running point blank towards a rat king of hollows and for the first time, he does not reach for the strength of his bankai, no.

C’mon, King, that’s it.

He feels the power welling up, a beast breaking its chain links, frothing and ripping through whatever it must. His blood is pumping hot and fast and there’s an undercurrent, a repeat feeling of ownership that he can’t ignore. Nothing can hurt Grimmjow. Nothing can rip at his flesh or tear from his bones.

He’s mine.  

“Ichigo! Stop for a second!” 

She digs her heels into the sand, a strained cry of effort, and his head is pulsing, honed in elsewhere but somehow he manages to stop. Stop running. To swivel his head and stare at her. There’s a distortion around his sight, black and swimming. He winces, growls. 

“Oh…” she says again. “Oh, wow.” 

“What is it?” He’s irritated, and the words are bit out through clenched jaws. Strange. Nel comes forward, reaches up, and he shocks himself by snapping his teeth at her. She doesn’t have a reaction of fear, but instead near excitement. A squeal of delight as she continues and touches over his face. 

“You haven’t noticed? Don’t you feel different?”

Different? It’s hard to concentrate. 

Nel moves her hands again, tugs on something on his head, it yanks him around. Ichigo swats at her, but in looking up, he can see it—what she’s holding onto. 

It’s a horn. His horn. 

There’s a moment where he sobers, a calming breath through the tumultuous black. His hands come up alongside Nel’s, touching at the hollow features. And he knows this is different. Nel isn’t Inoue, she isn’t afraid of her own kind, but still the desire to apologize is there. He hadn’t brought his mask out intentionally, and this, judging by how it felt, wasn’t a mask at all. But him. As he’d been when he fought Yhwach, a perfect amalgam of his shinigami and vasto lordes body. Still, it isn’t wholly unleashed. The itching is still there. A muzzle yet to come off. 

Nel says, “You scared them before.” 

Ichigo squints through the cacophony of rushing water in his head and hollow screams up ahead. “What?”

“The other hollows. When you came here with him the first time—they would have sensed you, and kept their distance. Don’t tell Grimmjow this, but they would have assumed he was your prey. I’m kinda surprised he didn’t come to that conclusion on his own.”

“He hasn’t seen it. My hollow. Not fully. He hasn’t fought it since I could barely hold a mask.” 

Blacked out eyes ringed in gold snap back to the twisting bodies. So, that was why there’d been no one for miles. The hollows had responded to Ichigo’s own, assumed the meal they scented out was already accounted for. And they weren’t willing to become next on the menu. Did that mean if he rushed forward that they’d scatter now? Should he intervene? Or should he trust that Grimmjow was strong enough to take care of himself? Like this, it’s difficult to think rationally. His blood is begging him to move, to bite through anything in his way. But the rest of him knows that when it comes to a man like Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez, saving his life may very well be considered an insult.

And to top it off, this wouldn’t be the first time. 

Memories flit through Ichigo’s mind—Nnoitra’s unique weapon, catching Grimmjow out of nowhere at the tail end of their battle. Neither of them had the strength to continue. But when that second swing had arced in the air before him, Ichigo hadn’t even had time to think. He’d just moved. Put his body in between the fifth espada and Grimmjow like it was second nature. They’d never talked about it. Hadn’t seen each other for a couple years after and by the time Yhwach was at his height, it hadn’t been on his mind. He wonders now if Grimmjow holds it against him. If it’s one of the reasons he wants to fight again and again. And he doesn’t really give a shit about it one way or the next, because the truth of the matter is that he’d make the same decision again. Of course he would. 

He just wasn’t sure what that meant. 

But, maybe it didn’t have to mean anything. Not anything relevant, at least. The fact of it is that it doesn’t matter the who , where , or why of any of this. Whether Grimmjow gets pissed at him or not—hell, the guy could denounce him on the spot. It doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters to Ichigo at this moment is that he lives. Everything else can come second.

Another scream hits his ears, a cry of rallying strength. Ichigo hones in on the movement, and the sight before him cancels out any further logical thought. He sees Grimmjow, all claws and wild hair, blood and gore coming with him as he slashes a hollow in the face. He strikes forward, pouncing with such speed that Ichigo nearly loses track of him in the throng. But then he sees it, another from behind who leaps just as Grimmjow closes his jaws around the one before him—and Ichigo watches as Grimmjow takes a vicious bite to the nape of his neck. 

The next roar that reverberates through the sands of Hueco Mundo does not belong to any of the hollows before him, or Grimmjow, but from his own mouth. Ichigo throws his head back as the hollow within him rears, and breaks free. He does not think, not the same way. All that is before him is all that there is. Nel’s voice goes unheard. She grabs at his arm only to find it shaken off because he…he…

He is a hollow.

           He is running, screaming.

                         The horns on his head stand proud as light fractures and begins to swirl between their two points.

A cero.

              Red and red and red.

                                                             His feet dig into the sand, moving faster. 

      The ones who attack will not survive. He will…he will…

                  Eat them.

                                   Shred them.

                                                                   Make them pay for it.

 For touching what is his. 

 

Notes:

wth is going on here--who let me turn this into pseudo abo??? Anyways sorry for the cliffhanger!! tehe :) Tell me what you think?<3

Chapter 6

Under the endless night sky of Hueco Mundo, there is only a sea of blood. 

Ichigo has forgotten himself, as he has not been known to do in quite some time, as far as his hollow abilities are concerned. Him and Zangestu had long since found camaraderie and oneness with each other. But, content with every beast that lay within his belly or not, they cannot always be contained. The scene before him is one of carnage. Broken limbs severed with teeth at the joints, and pooling red in the sand amongst corpses of other hollows that did not have what it took to stay alive. 

He and Grimmjow will be the only two left standing. 

The arrancar’s movements are feline and lethal, the way he slashes with black-tipped claws and bared teeth. But he sees the moment Ichigo arrives, and hesitates in his movements, cero from his palm left fizzling as their eyes meet. The shock on the other’s face, that widening in his eyes, goes unnoticed by Ichigo who makes rare use of sonido to dispatch the lesser adjuchas hollow approaching Grimmjow’s back. 

There are no words, only fighting, and it doesn’t last long. 

From the first guttural scream, the others must have felt in their bones what had come upon them. The ones too small to have evolved yet at all try to run, or burrow into the sand out of the way of the sheer strength Kurosaki Ichigo brings with him wherever he goes. Those arrogant enough to remain in the face of, what would appear to them as, a full fledged Vasto Lordes meet their ends swiftly and with cracking, wet cries. 

But the hollows were only ever in his way, barring him from his goal. 

The hollow that is Ichigo sets its sights on Grimmjow who stands, panting and hunched over, blood dripping from his mouth and blue eyes in a frenzy. For a moment, they just stare at each other, but he is a being of instinct–they both are–and so the stillness cannot last for long. 

“You weren’t kiddin’ about that Hollow, huh?” Grimmjow says, but his voice is distorted, as if Ichigo cannot hear him properly. It does not matter. Whatever he says, the outcome will remain the same. Ichigo uses sonido again, until he’s right upon Grimmjow’s front. He brings a leg up, uses that momentum to send a near-flying kick into Grimmjow’s unsuspecting stomach. The arrancar flies back, and Ichigo is with him again. Grimmjow’s back hits the sand as a curse leaves his curled lips. He’s not one to stay down, Ichigo knows this.

Get ahold of yourself, King.

Zangetsu’s voice goes ignored, Ichigo is not interested in logic. This power is his, as it always has been, and he will not curtail it. He is a hollow and he… 

Wants. 

           Blood. 

                         Food. 

                                   Protect. 

                                                Protect. 

                                                                Kill .

Grimmjow does not attack him as another hollow in his position would. Perhaps it’s because he does not believe Ichigo would either. But it will not be to his benefit today. Ichigo’s horns are large and proud when he dives them into the sand on either side of Grimmjow’s head, pinning him in place. Mouth agape, he screams so gutturally that if he were in his human body, he’d shred his throat. It is the cry of a hollow on the precipice of victory, and Grimmjow likely knows it well. Through murky, primal eyes he sees Grimmjow’s expression–wide eyed and caught entirely off guard. But, he isn’t frightened. Of course he isn't. Beneath the shock there’s a thrumming of pure, unfiltered pleasure rolling off his reiatsu in waves. No, he is not intimidated by this display. 

He’s impressed. 

At the apex of another scream, a red glow begins to coalesce within Ichigo’s mouth, swelling and cracking with power. The heat from it burns his tongue.

“You’re not fuckin’ serious–.” Grimmjow’s voice is in his ears, beckoning him through the fog. But this anger, this visceral need for carnage and vindication, it must have somewhere to go. Within his gut, there is a part of Ichigo that bucks at the thought of harming the hollow beneath him, the scent of that reiatsu a beacon he wants to bury his face into and rip out with his teeth, savoring it in the pits of his gut. It conflicts with another desire, another objective. What was it again? 

When the cero reaches fullness, Grimmjow only has a fraction of a moment to either call Ichigo’s bluff, or react. He must be able to see something in the Vasto Lordes’ expression to tell him which one he should choose because, within an instant, Grimmjow’s hands fly to his sword, and the blast from his resurreccion’s reiatsu detonates around them. A crater blown in the sand around the two of them, any of the smaller hollows that had gone unnoticed are either vaporized immediately, or blown far out of range. Ichigo’s horns are freed with the sand blown away, and then he receives a kick to the gut that sends him backwards. 

“Cero at point blank? That’s dirty work.” Grimmjow says with a feral grin once there’s distance between them. His release form is all lethal edges and flowing blue hair from behind him. His scent is so much stronger like this, and Ichigo feels himself salivating in the face of it, wetness mixed with blood further staining the white sand. He will not be pushed back, kept from his prey. He will have it between his jaws until it cracks. Another sonido closes the gap, but Grimmjow has always been faster than him. They clash and fight with such ferocity that Ichigo loses track of their movements. But that doesn’t matter. He is purely sense and instinct, scent and sound. He doesn’t need to see Grimmjow to feel him. He’d know him anywhere. Ichigo screams, a primal thing, pure hollow, with claws that yearn to rip. Grimmjow is fighting him in earnest now, but it isn’t enough. Not like this. When Ichigo is upon him after a while, he knows he’s won. 

Mouth open again, that red blares between the two of them as another cero swells and forms. Ichigo reaches up, grabs Grimmjow by the armor at his brow to hold him steady. He will put the arrancar in the ground and then there will be no contest of who he belongs to. No one else will get their teeth anywhere near him. But Grimmjow says, 

“You hear me in there? Gonna try to take me out without a word, huh? Cowardly bastard.” He coughs up blood.

There is no answer, only heat building between them. Grimmjow reaches forward with what is likely the last of his strength, and grabs Ichigo by one of his horns, yanking him and holding strong. 

“C’mon, Kurosaki! Let me see those fuckin’ eyes!” 

Ichigo cannot help it, he tilts his head, confusion etching through the haze of bloodthirst. Blinking, he sees Grimmjow, but it’s different than he just looked. The bone white armor he’s holding is cracked. The arrancar pants with blood pouring freely from his mouth, and chest heaving. Ichigo holding him by the crown is the only thing holding him up at all, without Grimmjow's grip on his horn. His knees have buckled. 

A sound Ichigo does not recognize leaves his throat, warbling and clicking. He leans closer, near the other’s neck. That scent… Too much and not enough. The unknown sound turns into a growl, and when he tightens his grip, the armor cracks, breaking apart in his palm and crumbling into dust. Crystalized reishi, carried off by the wind. Just like… Who did that remind him of? What had happened… The dark night…a bat? No, an Espada. And…humans…Inoue and Ishida…there to save him but he was not the one who needed saving… Ulquiorra. Grimmjow’s armor was breaking off just like Ulquiorra’s and–. 

Yeah, you’re gonna kill him. Tried tellin’ you. 

Ichigo drops his hold, the building cero fizzling out as he collapses to the ground. The dark haze fades back from his eyes. Blinking, he can see much better now, as if ink were draining away. He’s panting, chest heaving as his fingers dig into the sand. What the hell just happened? What was he doing? And is–. 

“Grimmjow!?” he says, scrambling closer to the arrancar who’s regarding him with slitted eyes. Panic rises in his throat at the sight. Whatever reiryoku that had been leaking from his broken mask before, it’s nothing like what he’s witnessing now. And the scent is so heady that Ichigo would have collapsed under the need of it if he weren’t solidly freaking the fuck out. “Get out of your release, you’re losing too much.” 

Grimmjow scoffs, which turns into a wet cough, full of red. “Whose fault is that, huh…?” He pushes himself into a sitting position, teeth bared and pupils dilated. Another portion of his armor cracks from a shoulder, and crumbles into the wind. They both stare down at it. A growl in Grimmjow’s chest gets Ichigo’s attention, but the arrancar shakes his head violently, focusing himself. He says, “Hell’re you doin’ here? How long you been keepin’ a whole Vasto Lordes form from me?” 

“I didn’t, uh–.” He stops to catch his breath, staring down at hands that are covered in blood. He can only imagine what the rest of him looks like. “I didn’t know I could still do that. I thought–I mean, I went through this whole thing with Zangetsu, long story–sword broke and I had to meet this guy and, whatever–so I didn’t–I…I didn’t know.” He swallows, thick, the world still orienting itself. Coming out of this form is strange. He’d only encountered it one other time–after Ulquiorra had killed him in his spirit body for the second time. And back then, he’d had no recollection. It was like an entirely separate being had taken over. Now, it was a bit different. Even though it hadn’t felt like him, he remembered the events like he was remembering a dream. But then Grimmjow’s words catch up with him. “And what do you mean why am I here ? You ditched me, you piece of shit! What the hell? We have to get outta here. I told Kon to meet us at–.”

“Not gettin’ back in that fuckin’ meat sack,” Grimmjow says, but his eyes have fallen shut and his breathing is labored. Long blue hair cascades around him, tangled with bits of blood and sand. 

“Don’t be so much of a stubborn bastard that it kills you. You gonna let yourself die here? Really?” 

The growl sounds again, a bit more feral, as Grimmjow’s tail thwaps against the ground. Ichigo wonders just how long Grimmjow will have control over himself, or when he’ll begin to lash out the same way he did the last time they were here. Maybe with all the hollows he’d eaten before Ichigo had arrived, they’d tide him over for a little while. Or, maybe they would have if Ichigo hadn’t mindlessly kicked the shit out of him to the point of near-death. 

“You’re the only bastard I’d let kill me. Even if it was a cheap shot. And who said m’dyin’?”

The nausea-inducing anxiety all of this conjures is almost enough to put him on his back, wiped out the same way. But Ichigo shoves it all down to be dealt with later. He’s more upset than he’d like to admit that Grimmjow left him the way he did. Feels like an honest to god idiot for everything that’d transpired over the last few days. It’s mortifying. But none of that will matter if Grimmjow dies, so he can deal with it later. Hopefully, when the other’s in enough of a condition to have an actual conversation. Then he can kick his ass on fair terms. 

So, Ichigo pushes himself to stand, and tries not to recall the last time he’d seen Grimmjow like this, bleeding out in the sand, wounded from Nnoitra’s blade. He reaches a hand out to him and says, “Just get up. C’mon.” 

The laughter he receives is bitter. “Fuck does it matter to you? We ain’t friends, Kurosaki. You can take your hero complex and shove it up your Shinigami ass for all I care. Don’t need your pity.” 

“I’m not pitying you, asshole! I–.” He stops, grinds his teeth. His outstretched hand is left cold and empty, so he retracts it and shoves it into the folds of his shihakusho with a scowl on his face. Nel’s words echo in his mind, and the subject matter has him almost flushing in spite of the carnage around them. He isn’t about to call Grimmjow something as ridiculous as a… mate. Even if that is the hollow term and even if it is a thing, which he doesn’t quite buy that it is yet. He’s not a hollow. He’s a human. So, regardless, it wouldn’t and shouldn’t mean anything to him. Even if there’s a part of Ichigo in the pits of his gut that’s churning wildly at seeing Grimmjow so injured and broken at his feet. Something that makes it nearly impossible to ignore, to walk away from him. And he’s supposed to be pissed, is the issue. He is pissed. But when Ichigo looks at him he just… “I do care about you. You stupid, stubborn bag of dicks. And Nel has this crazy idea that–.” 

“Neliel don’t know what the fuck she’s talkin’ about,” Grimmjow says with sudden, lethal clarity. “She’s got her wires crossed.” Ichigo frowns, about to open his mouth and ask how Grimmjow even knew where he was going with that, considering they hadn’t discussed it in his presence, when the arrancar speaks again. “What, you think ‘cause I let you touch my dick piss drunk it means I’m your damn soulmate? Give me a break. Thought you were stupid, Kurosaki, but fuck, that takes it.” 

For a moment, Ichigo hears nothing, only a ringing in his ear as a gust of wind blows crystals of sand about his feet. Grimmjow’s words slice him to the bone, and somehow manage to catch him off guard. His face feels numb, void of emotion and nearly slack-jawed over the cruel nature of the comments. But, that’s what Grimmjow does, right? 

Destroy. 

“Fuck you,” he says, in an astonished near-whisper. A part of him almost asks, How the fuck could you say something so messed up? What the hell did I do besides try to help? But, of course he knows the answer. In some ways, Grimmjow is right. He didn’t ask for pity. He didn’t ask for help. In fact, from the moment he knew the man was being kept at Urahara’s, Grimmjow had been wanting to leave. He told Ichigo he’d be gone the moment he figured out how. And he stayed true to that. He’s a hollow, after all. They didn’t have hearts. 

They didn’t give a shit.

But Ichigo is not a man to go down with his tail between his legs, heat stolen by a single mean remark. He’s kicked people in the face for less. Grimmjow may be down now, but there’s one way to still make sure his point is known, even through that thick skull of his. Ichigo lets a brutal punch fly into the other’s bare left cheek. Hands balled into fists, he says,

“Guess you chickened out of our fight after all, then. Fine by me.” 

Ichigo turns, and sees Nel watching them from the opposite side of the crater’s rim. Somehow, he’d forgotten her presence, and the embarrassment of the whole thing only compounds. Even from this distance, he can see the pain on her face. A shunpo step later, and he’s walking past her. “Can you open a garganta for me?” 

“Ichigo,” she starts, reaching out to grab his shoulder. He shrugs her off. 

“Please, Nel? I can’t–I don’t wanna talk about anything. I just want to go home. I made a mistake in thinking Grimmjow was capable of giving a shit about anything other than his pride. I won’t make it again. He can die out here if he wants to.” 

Nervous, she worries her lower lip between her teeth, gazes out to where Grimmjow lays, haloed in seeping blood. “He is not my concern. But, you are my friend. What can I do?”

Ichigo takes a deep breath in and blows it out through his nose, hard. Grimmjow doesn’t deserve jack shit from him right now. But, if he were to leave, and let him die…he doesn’t think he’d be able to forgive himself for that either. So, to Nel, he says, 

“Send me home first then dump him on Urahara’s doorstep for me?” 

She smiles, but it’s sad. Ichigo wonders why only some of the arrancar seemed to regain their emotions. “I can do that.” 

Ichigo steps through the garganta, worse for wear and emotionally exhausted, face plants into his body lying neatly on his bed, and sleeps for a solid ten hours. 

---

 

He wakes up to three missed calls and five text messages. All of them are from Urahara, except for one call and voicemail left by Yoruichi, clearly drunk last night, hyping him up and telling him she was proud of him for letting that arrancar bastard have it. He doesn’t answer any of them, even if his textlog from Urahara now looks like: 

Clogs 7:13pm: I have the package! Repeat, Kurosaki-san, I have the package! 

Clogs 7:56pm: Honestly I thought I’d get at least one silly comment out of “package” but I suppose you’ve had a long day. Get some rest! 

Clogs 8:32pm: You really did a number on him this time, you know. Even with the gigai, it will take a few days of kido to get him stable. 

Clogs 1:24am: Just kidding! He woke up! I have the scratches on my face to prove it! Oh, he is NOT happy about being back in here haha

Clogs 8:00am: Good morning, Kurosaki-san! When will you be by to retrieve your estranged ally? 

Ichigo stares at the messages, then closes his text app. He’s not going to reply anyway, and looking at them will only further piss him off. Grimmjow is awake and fine. Good. That means he doesn’t need to make himself sick worrying that he killed the guy. Not that he would have. But, it’s not like he intends to go out killing anything so, Grimmjow or not, he wouldn’t have enjoyed hearing that. 

Swinging his legs over the side of his bed, Ichigo finds himself utterly and blissfully alone. The sun is filtering in through his window, and no one’s screaming in his ear or throwing anything around the room. It isn’t much, but he considers that a win by all accounts. His muscles feel stiff today, likely from the way he’d slept. But it’s nothing some anti-inflammatories and a hot shower won’t fix. He’ll just get on with his day, eat some breakfast, and get back to what he was doing before that blue-haired bastard even showed up. 

…You think ‘cause I let you touch my dick piss drunk it means I’m your damn soulmate?

Ichigo takes a measured breath, and forces the memory as far away from him as it will go. Fuck Grimmjow. Fuck anything that came out of his mouth. But, the arrancar was right about one thing. Maybe he does have a hero complex. That would explain why he tried so hard so fast to help the guy. Hollow. Not a guy. Grimmjow, by definition, was not human. And he spends every day proving it with how little he gives a shit about anyone other than himself. 

And he was right about another thing, too, because Ichigo is an idiot. He’s an idiot for thinking a, for all intents and purposes, undead ghost monster would be good at playing nice or having friends. This whole time, it seems, he’s just been pushing his expectations onto people who didn’t want them. Or, maybe that’s dramatic. He’d tried to help Grimmjow because he needed it, not because he wanted to be the one who saved him. Right? 

Is that right? 

He’s not sure, and he doesn’t care enough to ponder it. Not today. Today, Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez can rot for all he cares. He gets up, cracks his back with arms stretched over his head and lets out a loud yawn. Come to think of the silence, it’s too good to believe. Where the hell is Kon? A quick glance around the room proves fruitless, and today he’s not even tied up in the closet. If Grimmjow woke up, that means he has the gigai back, which means Kon is shit outta luck in the body department again. Where the hell would he be? In the back of his mind, as Ichigo gets down on the floor to look under his bed as if he’s looking for a genuine stuffed animal, he has half a mind to worry. There’s something definitely off with the guy lately. And he’d been missing the other night, a story not yet shared… It reeks of some level of nonsense he may not even want to know. 

Under the bed is a bright green sock with tacos all over it. 

Ichigo frowns, says out loud, “What the hell…?” He reaches under, grabs the thing and pulls it out. It’s no sock he recognizes. And it’s definitely not one Grimmjow was wearing–the guy only had his uniform and whatever else Ichigo let him wear. Definitely nothing like this. For the better part of a minute, he really does spend some brain power on it. Tries to remember when he had any friends over last. Eventually, he comes up blank, and chucks the thing onto his dresser for later musings. He’s really not in a place to handle something bizarre and unaccounted for right now. 

Ichigo takes the hottest shower his skin can tolerate, and then soaks in the tub for half an hour to work out all the stiffness. It’s not his usual morning routine, but the steam helps, eases him into the relaxation that he clearly didn’t achieve in sleep. Bubbles float around him, courtesy of Yuzu’s stash of bath stuff that he’s never outwardly admitted to using but that she still knows every time he does because he smells like vanilla coconut. It’s going to be a fine and normal day if it’s the last thing he does. 

Dressing is fast, and when Ichigo makes his way to the kitchen, he nearly expects someone to call him out on something. For someone to know what happened. But, of course, they don’t. And he should know better. Urahara was a menace on a good day but even he didn’t arbitrarily involve his family with every matter. Mostly. 

Yuzu makes him breakfast because she’s a godsend. She says, 

“We thought you were going to sleep all week.” 

Ichigo rubs a hand over his face. “It wasn’t even a full day.” Then, panic seeps in. “What day is it?” 

“Tuesday.” 

Like a man electrocuted at the thought of actually being out for almost five days, Ichigo whips out his phone with a, “No fucking way–.” 

But Yuzu is already giggling. “Just kidding! But you did sleep through dinner last night. Is everything okay?” 

With a sigh, Ichigo lets his head thump down on the kitchen table. “Don’t scare me like that…” It’s not an answer to her question, so he just shrugs after. “It’s fine.” 

“Oh, yeah? If it’s fine, then where’s Grimmjow?” 

Ichigo won’t lie, he feels more than a little defensive and uppity over the insinuation of the question. As if things wouldn’t be fine strictly because Aizen’s ex-sexta wasn’t here. The guy had only been here for a day and a half, for fuck’s sake. He wasn’t a staple in the home by any means. And he’d only been here to begin with because Ichigo was doing Urahara a favor. Yeah. People were forgetting this hadn't been his idea–not his first, second, or third. 

As if sensing her attention, Ichigo can feel Karin’s eyes from the next room over. He can’t take too long to answer, but he’s been here before. Unable to explain the intricacies of whatever the hell is wrong. He really shouldn’t have ever brought Grimmjow here to begin with. What had he been thinking? Ultimately, it’s his fault things turned out the way they did. But, he doesn’t feel like saying all of that, or anything else, so he just says, 

“With Urahara. Training in the bunker.” 

Karin’s voice carries from the couch. “So, you guys didn’t fight?” 

Ichigo scoffs. “Fighting is kinda the whole deal with him.” 

He’s met with silence, which he hates. It feels judgmental, but maybe he’s just being paranoid. He eats the food, goes on about his day and tries to push the arrancar from anywhere in his mind. It doesn’t really work, of course, but it’s the thought that counts, right? And it’s stupid to be upset anyway. What had he been thinking? Kissing a hollow? Hanging out like they were friends? Of course it blew up in his face. Really, he can hardly even blame Grimmjow for it. No one gets pissed off at a fish for not climbing a tree, after all. Still, that voice of his clatters around Ichigo’s mind, unrelenting. 

You got any idea what kinda message that sends, Shinigami? 

…think I’m your damn soulmate? 

Get drunk with me. 

Ichigo shoves the heels of his palms into his eyes, scrubs and scrubs until he sees stars. This bullshit heavy feeling inside himself wouldn’t last forever. He just needed a few days to reset, to forget that something like Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez could ever smell so strangely enticing that Ichigo had both wanted to kill anything that got near him while also needing to consume him whole. He thinks life would be a whole lot more normal if he could pretend he’d never had any cannibalistic inclination to begin with. And really, there was no true use wondering what any of that meant, or was. No need to fall down some rabbit hole about how hollows mated or chose who to stick around. It didn’t apply to him. 

Once he got back into his normal routine, it’d be the same as it was before. No one bothering him. Nothing happening. He’d wake up at noon and stare at the ceiling until a rumbling stomach dredged him up. Then, he’d help out at the clinic and listen to his old man tell him how important and beloved he was but that also whenever he’d like to get a real job, that would be great. No more shinigami. No more hollows. Just…him, and the human lifespan that stretched on into the unknown, no longer threatened by the workings of the afterlife until the final curtain. 

Just the way he definitely liked it. 

 

Two days later, Ichigo receives a text from Urahara letting him know Grimmjow is lonely. He stares at it for an hour before responding with a simple, Good. 

 

After another week, one day when it’s well past four in the afternoon and he’s still in his pajamas eating cereal with Karin on the couch as they binge every episode of Love Island that’s available to stream, the doorbell rings. They look at each other, cheeks full of Lucky Charms, as Karin quickly taps her pointer finger to her nose, and smiles like a chipmunk. Ichigo glares through his chewing, swallows, and sets his bowl on the coffee table with a, 

“That’s cheap…you didn’t even call nose goes. ” 

She shrugs, finishing her bite and grinning. “Nose goes.” 

“Fuck.” 

With a rough hand shoved through his hair and a scratch to his scalp, Ichigo walks the short distance from the living room to the door. If it’s Urahara, he’ll just slam it in his face. There’s no way in any shade of hell that Grimmjow himself would show up to his door like this, and so he doesn’t even spend time entertaining the possibility. The man was way too proud to stoop to this level. Now, if there were suddenly a burst of reiatsu outside and a guttural yell of wanting a fight, he’d believe it. But, ringing the doorbell? No way. It’s probably just a package delivery. Their dad was always getting some sort of useless trinket delivered. 

He opens the door to Ishida and Inoue, whom he hasn’t seen, or responded to, in months. 

“It’s worse than I thought,” Ishida says, pressing up his glasses. 

Inoue attempts to give him a smile, but there’s concern there. She’s holding a bag of pastries from a local bakery. “I…did think Urahara-san was probably exaggerating at least a little , but…” 

“Uh,” Ichigo starts, feeling overwhelmingly aware of his four-days strong sleep outfit with a milk stain on the front and unwashed hair. “Hey, guys.” 

“Get yourself cleaned up,” Ishida says, with no greeting or preamble. “Then, you’re coming with us.” 

Karin, who must have wandered over to eavesdrop and deemed it safe once the visitors were friends, says, “Is this an intervention for Ichi-nii? He needs it.” 

“Hello?” Ichigo says, incredulous. “As if you aren’t just as deep as I am.” 

“ Casa Amor may have my heart, but that was just a byproduct of someone needing to keep an eye on you.” Her delivery doesn’t betray an ounce of bullshit, and she looks to Ichigo’s friends as if he weren’t even there. “He’s sad that his hollow charity project was mean to him and is struggling to grapple with the reality of mundane human existence after being treated like a god in his teens. Good luck.” 

Karin leaves the rest of them speechless, three jaws left hanging open in the doorway as she makes her way up the stairs to her room like nothing even happened. The thought of her rotting away on the couch with him for the last two days, all for his own sake, tugs on his heart in a way that’s reserved for older brothers. Since when was Karin the one looking after him? Had he really been so wrapped up in some quagmire of existentialism that he hadn’t realized he was making his family worried? He needs time to digest that. Hollow charity project. That couldn’t be right. That couldn’t be all Grimmjow was. But, then again, maybe she’s right. Maybe he’d imprinted on the first thing to give him a sense of purpose in the aftermath of Ywach’s defeat. He’d been begging for something to happen. Anything. Had he really been so desperate to feel needed?

Maybe he had a lot more to unpack than he thought. 

“I’ve still been putting on deodorant, y’know,” he says when Ishida’s nose wrinkles at him. Inoue gives him a soft smile. 

“Of course you have, Kurosaki-kun,” she says at the same time Ishida says, “Today? Or last week?” 

Ichigo scowls. “Did you guys just come here to judge me on Urahara’s behalf? I’m not going over there. Grimmjow can go to hell and so can that hat and clogs bastard for all I care. And another thing–.” 

Ichigo does not get a chance to finish that sentence, as Ishida has stomped on his foot. “Will you shut up and go shower? We’re not taking you to Urahara-san. Or whatever hollow you’ve managed to entwine yourself with now. We’re going to lunch, and then the bar like sensible adults in a relatively small town with nothing better to do on a Saturday because Inoue-san is visiting from Tokyo purely on your behalf, and you are an ingrate who clearly doesn’t deserve it since you can’t even bother to keep up correspondence.” He takes a breath as Ichigo is, once again, left slack jawed. “And, to make matters worse, you’re stalling.” 

“I’m not stalling…” Ichigo says, stalling. 

“If you really don’t feel up to company, though,” Inoue says, ever the peacemaker. “We can come back later! So don’t feel pressured! We’re just a little worried, and we missed you, that’s all.” 

“Speak for yourself,” Ishida supplies. “I wasn’t worried at all. When it comes to Kurosaki, the culprit will always be some egregious stupidity of his own design.” 

Ichigo pauses. “But, you did miss me?” 

Ishida stares at him, frowning. Inoue smiles at Ishida. 

Ichigo blows out a sigh, “Okay I’ll get cleaned up.” He chews on his lip, looking at the both of them. Urahara had sent some message, likely a dramatic version of an SOS, and they’d both dropped what they were doing to show up at his door and take him out. Even though he’d been shit at keeping up with anyone. Hell, he’d even been shit at keeping up with himself. But, maybe this would help, seeing them again. Hanging out like old times. Maybe it’s what he needed to put this whole weird Grimmjow scenario behind him for real. With a bit of a smile himself, Ichigo says, 

“It’s good to see you guys.” 

Inoue beams at him, and Ishida, for all his pretenses, says, 

“And it’ll be even better once you’re bathed. We’ll wait down here.” 

Yuzu comes in from tending her garden of potted vegetables on their patio, and makes tea with a smile on her face. She serves up the pastries Inoue brought on a small platter for snacking. Ichigo showers, sits in the tub a little longer than he normally would. The voices of his sisters and friends can be heard from downstairs, laughing and reminiscing on the days they’d all spent growing up together. And it hits him with a pang in his chest that he’d nearly forgotten…

He’d mattered long before he saved the world. 

Notes:

I struggled a bit with this chapter. It feels like an interim and I'm always worried things may come off boring, or that not much happens. But I think I'm satisfied, mostly. Really, I'm always just sad when Grimmjow is missing from the majority of it HAHAH. But, don't worry! He'll be back hehe. I'm sorry this update took so long. I got very caught up writing Heartbeat Stereo. But! I have the outline for this all finished. So please rest assured that I won't give up on it, and now you can see the chapter projection as well! I'll be, hopefully, updating Confined next, in time for Ichigo's birthday. And then will come back here :))
Anyway, did you like it? Tell me what you think? <3

Chapter 7

Notes:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ICHIGO BABY (tomorrow in us but today in japan) I HOPE YOU ENJOY EMOTIONAL TURMOIL!!

“So, let me get this straight,” Ishida says while pinching the bridge of his nose and taking a deep breath. Ichigo and Inoue are seated at a high table with him at their local bar, after a lunch of sandwiches and milkshakes–Inoue’s idea. 

“It’s sort of not straight, though,” Inoue says, innocent as can be while sipping her blended strawberry drink. Ichigo isn’t even sure if there’s alcohol in it, but he doesn’t have the opportunity to wonder on it, because he’s too busy cringing into the stratosphere at her comment. With a wince, he says, 

“I don’t think he meant it like that.” 

“Oh, hm…” she trails off, determination pulling her brows together as she sucks a bit too hard on the straw. Distracted from his impending judgment, Ishida’s voice turns gentle. 

“Inoue-san, I think you’re stuck on the fruit again.” 

She gasps, pulls her straw free, and narrows her eyes at a hunk of offending strawberry, half-way caught in the straw. “Astute as always, Ishida-kun!” She gives him a faux serious salute, then smiles at him, and he immediately looks away with heat on his cheeks. 

“As I was saying…” 

“As you were judging…” Ichigo mutters, nursing his own beer. 

“I’m not judging you,” he says, sounding unconvincing. “I’m only making sure I have this right. You not only aided and abetted an arrancar staying in the world of the living, but then you took it on a date, committed a crime of indecency beside Karakura river, and then entirely lost your mind in Hueco Mundo, of all places, over it.” 

“I–,” Ichigo starts, trying and failing to get the narrative back under control. And after he’d worked so hard to tell it modestly. “Okay, well, when you put it like that it sounds insane. But–.” 

“But?” 

“Would you just–!” Ichigo raises his hands, clearly frustrated. He takes a deep breath then lays them back on the table. “This sucks, okay? It’s shitty and embarrassing and I knew you wouldn’t get it. So maybe we can just pretend I didn’t actually lay it all out on the line for once and that I kept it to myself. Okay?” His eyes move off to the pool tables, and he frowns remembering the last time he was here. Even knowing how things turned out, Ichigo wonders if he wouldn’t still do it all over again just to have that night. It was the first time in longer than he can remember where he felt something other than responsibility or utter monotony. Strangely enough, the last time he felt normal. That shouldn’t be the case, should it? Oh, well. So he’s more fucked up than he thought. What’s new? 

“I’m only–,” Ishida starts, trying and clearly failing to come up with words. Inoue steps in for him, soft and comforting in that way of hers. 

“I think what Ishida-kun is trying to say is that he’s just worried about you, and maybe even upset on your behalf. It sounds like you were really vulnerable with Grimmjow, and he didn’t exactly appreciate that. We’re your friends, so it’s natural to get a little upset for you, right? Like you’d do for us.” 

Ichigo gives Ishida a raised brow as if to ask, Well, Ishida? Is that right? 

Ishida’s jaw clenches, and he breathes in with his eyes shut. “I cannot pretend that cavorting with the undead is ever something I’ll approve of–.” 

“Cavorting,” Ichigo repeats. 

“–That being said! Inoue-san is right. Although the contents of your… situation make me nauseous, and I don’t understand what you could possibly see in a–.” Inoue clears her throat with a smile on her face. Ishida rolls his eyes. “...We are here for you.” 

Despite himself, Ichigo laughs. “Thanks, I can really tell no teeth were pulled in the making of whatever that was.” 

Ishida dips a finger into his drink and flicks it at Ichigo. 

“So,” Inoue starts, speaking in between sips. “He hasn’t come around since? And it’s been over a week?” 

Ichigo shrugs. “Been close to two now, and no. I don’t expect him to. Why would he? I told you what he said. He doesn’t want my help, or–anything else from me. So that’s that.” 

She hums. “It’s just that he was so obsessed with you when we met again with Urahara-san. It’s the only reason he helped us at all, you know.” 

“Huh?” Ichigo knew that Inoue, Chad, and Urahara had worked with Grimmjow in Hueco Mundo when they’d fought against the Quincies. He remembered hearing his voice on that little video feed when he’d spoken to Urahara. At the time, he’d been really curious what it was all about, but it was right when he’d been dealing with breaking Zangetsu and getting a new sword, so it hadn’t stuck in his mind. And, once they’d all met again and he found out Grimmjow was working with them, he hadn’t thought much further. 

But, Inoue nods like this should have been obvious. “Mhm. Urahara-san asked for his help in exchange for a favor. And all Grimmjow wanted was to know where you were. So that was the deal. Help us, and he can see you again.” 

Ichigo thinks he may break his glass over his head. 

“Yeah,” he says. “So he could kill me.” 

“Did he try to kill you?” 

“Well–no. But…that wouldn’t have been in his best interest. There were a lot of people around. He wouldn’t want distractions.” 

“Using the people you’d want to protect to goad you into a fight–isn’t that what he did when Nel-chan and I watched you fight him? He nearly hit us, and forced you to use your hollow powers.” 

Ichigo spends the next twenty seconds chewing on his lip and trying to come up with a rebuttal to that. Unfortunately for him, he’s coming up empty. But it couldn’t have been that simple, that easy. He’s definitely positive that Grimmjow wants to fight him. It was one of the first things he said when he came through that garganta out of Yukio’s box. If Nel hadn’t been there right after, the guy would have swung on him no question. And, sure, Inoue has a bit of a point that he guesses Grimmjow didn’t try to attack him at any other point in time, not even once…but the guy was smart, too smart to think that was a viable option given all the captain-class shinigami that were nearby at that time. Had Grimmjow ever given a thought to their proximity before? Ichigo isn’t sure. Honestly, thinking about this is just making his head hurt. This should be simple. Grimmjow is a hollow. Hollows want to kill and eat. Ichigo had been giving him one of the two things he knew how to crave, and before that he’d been a driving force for the other. That was it. 

“I dunno,” he says finally. “I just don’t think it’s like that. I don’t think he feels any kinda way about me other than a prey obsession. If he beat me for real, he’d just find someone new after.” 

“Somehow,” Ishida says, finishing off his drink. “You’ve still managed to phrase that to sound like a breakup.” 

“You’re reading into things!” 

“You let him fondle you in public!” 

“It was over the river bank and I was trashed!” 

“Did you intend to tell that to the police when they arrested you for public indecency?” 

“Oh, get the stick out of your ass, Ishida! Maybe if someone jacked you off outside you’d feel better.” 

Ishida, who had just been taking a sip of his drink, chokes on it and sends bubbles up through the glass, spilling over the sides and spraying him in the face. Quiet settles around them, and then the three of them break out into laughter.. 

“You’re the worst,” Ishida says, taking off his glasses to dry them on a microfiber cloth. He’s still laughing. 

“Yeah, I know.” 

Inoue, trying to suppress her giggling, says, “Are you alright, Ishida-kun?” 

“I’m fine.” 

Without asking for them, the bartender drops off a small stack of napkins on their table. The three of them hang their heads and apologize for the mess. And the night goes well. Ichigo cannot help but admit he needed this. Just to be around people he’s known for so long, that have known him as well. It’s a comfort he’d forgotten. During the height of his shinigami work, he’d grown distant from most of his friends, weighed down by the weight of three worlds and not wanting to share an ounce of the burden. For a while there, he’d felt as if maybe he’d been separate for too long. Like he wouldn’t fit. It’s relieving to know that isn’t the case. After a while, Inoue says, 

“Um… Kurosaki-kun? I don’t mean to make this about me at all, and I know you must have been so busy trying to get Grimmjow set up in your house and figuring out what happened to him, but… Why didn’t you call me?” 

Ichigo had been waiting for that, and as he finishes off his drink, he mulls it over before answering. Why? To him, it was obvious. He’s not sure why it isn’t to her. But Inoue has always thought simply about most things. Still, he’s honest, even if it makes him look like a coward. 

“I wanted to. I mean, Grimmjow didn’t, y’know–wanted to do it himself, didn’t want help. But, you were the first person I thought of when Urahara told me what was going on.” He flags for another drink, waits until he’s holding the newly chilled glass between his hands. “But, I hadn’t answered any of your texts in months. I couldn’t reach out for the first time for a favor. I didn’t want to use you.” 

“So there are manners in there somewhere.” Ishida says with a smirk. 

Ichigo flips him off. 

Inoue hums, tilting her head. “You’re a very kind person, you know. I wouldn’t have taken it poorly.” 

“I know you wouldn’t have. But no, I don’t think I am.” 

“Well, good thing it’s my opinion, so it’s only about what I think!” 

He laughs. “Okay, fair. Thanks.” 

Inoue finishes her drink by sipping through the straw loudly. “Are we finished with the serious talk now, by the way? Because I have another question.” 

Ishida scoffs. “This was serious?” 

Ichigo says, “Go ahead.” 

“So what does he smell like?” 

Now, it’s Ichigo’s turn to spit out his drink. “Why does that matter!?” 

She giggles. Ichigo can feel heat on his face to an embarrassing degree. “You said Nel-chan told you it’s like a hollow dating thing, right? So I’m super curious! What do hollows like to smell? Is it like barbecue?” 

“Inoue-san…” 

Ichigo covers his cheeks with a palm. “No way, we’re not talking about this. Forget I said that part.” 

“And,” Ishida points out, smug in Ichigo’s discomfort. “He said mating not dating.” 

Inoue gasps. “Oh! So it’s like when birds do their little dances! That’s so cute. Kurosaki-kun, have you tried dancing?” 

“Of course I haven’t! And I don’t want to! Because I don’t want him like that! I don’t want to date or mate him! Okay? That’s the whole point!” 

She remains unconvinced, tapping a slender finger to her chin. “But, if you don’t want those things, why are you so sad about it?” 

“Because I–.” Wait. Danger. Pause. “Hang on, I’m not sad! I’m pissed off! At Grimmjow for being an asshole, but mostly at me for falling for it. That’s all. So you can get that little sparkle out of your eye.” 

“Are you sure…?” 

“Inoue-san,” Ishida says. “Let’s give him some time to work that part out.” The way he looks at her has Ichigo wondering if maybe there shouldn’t be a different discussion of dating and dancing on the table, but he doesn’t care enough to get involved, so he settles for being thankful that this mortifying conversation is finally being put to rest. As if sensing him on this, Ishida continues to say, “By the way, Kurosaki, have you been invited to the beach yet?” 

Ichigo blinks. “You do not mean Grimmjow anymore, right?” 

Inoue nearly chokes on her laughter. “No! Keigo is organizing a trip for everyone. I guess he’s getting very excited. Tatsuki-chan told me that Mizuiro-san told her that Keigo has been bragging about buying boxes of condoms for it.” 

“ Boxes . Plural.” Ichigo lets that settle between them as he digests each of those words. “So, what kinda party is it?” 

Ishida says, “Not the kind where I’ll need to see his choice in brand if I can help it.” 

Ichigo leans closer to him. “Odds of him buying some shit like super magnum XL?” 

“Too high.” 

Inoue ignores them. “He said he was going to ask you. Everyone’s invited. I guess he has an aunt or something with a beach house, and she’s going to be gone for a few days, so we’re going to stay there. Oh, you have to come, Kurosaki-kun! It’s going to be so much fun!” 

He says to Ishida, “And you’re going?” 

“With your attendance, I could say yes with a bit less disdain.” 

“You can just tell me you like me sometimes, y’know.” 

“And give you an even larger ego? I’ll pass.” 

A side glance back to Inoue reveals her to be staring at him with aforementioned eye sparkles. Ichigo blows out a sigh, but he’s smiling. 

“Okay, okay, I’ll think about it.” 

The rest of it goes by with laughs, and good times. They play darts. The only one of them that isn’t totally awful at it is Ishida. After it gets dark, and before any of them get actually drunk, they agree to go their separate ways. Ishida offers to walk Inoue to the train station. Ichigo lives closest in the opposite direction. It feels like, as he makes his way outside and on the trek home, that maybe a weight has lifted from him, if only just a little. He had a good time. So good, in fact, that even when it starts to rain, he finds he doesn’t quite mind. 

 

By the time he turns onto his block, there’s a downpour.

There’s no sense in rushing, he’s already soaked, so Ichigo continues the walk as leisurely as if the skies were clear. He doesn’t like the rain, never has. But he’s finding it’s alright to sit in it for a little. When he gets home, he can take another shower, and maybe even find it in himself to clean up a bit too. After getting out, it’s become painfully obvious how much of a depressed mess he’d been the last week. This did him good. He has good friends. And after actually talking about things, maybe he’ll even be able to go to sleep without lamenting his own idiocy. Hey, there’s a thought. 

But then Grimmjow is waiting outside for him in the rain, standing just under the awning of his home. 

Ichigo stops walking, heartbeat jumping up into his ears at the sight. He’s in the gigai, because he wouldn’t be standing otherwise, and he looks good. Not injured, or bleeding out with frenzied eyes like he had been the last time Ichigo had seen him. Yeah, he’s doing just fine. Only reason he’s here is probably to ask for a fight, or something along similar and expected lines. 

“You’re not dead,” he decides to say first to break the tension. 

Grimmjow’s eyes are sharp, they always are. And they regard him with a keenness that has Ichigo wanting to squirm. “You knew I wasn’t.” 

Ichigo chews his lip. Yeah, he did know that. From Urahara and his spam texts. So he guesses they aren’t going to beat around the bush. Fine. He’s fine with that. Time to cut to the chase, then. “What are you doing here, Grimmjow?”

There’s something in Grimmjow’s expression that gives Ichigo pause, makes him feel more on display than usual when he has that gaze on him. It’s…displeased, but not angry. Or maybe it’s something more complicated than that. Ichigo never has a hard time reading him. But, now, he can’t quite place what he sees. 

Grimmjow says, “How long you had that hollow for?” 

Ichigo feels a tick in his jaw at his question going unanswered. “Technically, I was born with it.” 

Grimmjow tongues the front of his teeth, hands shoved into his pockets. “Gettin’ soaked in the rain.” 

In order to not be standing under the sky’s shower, Ichigo would have to join Grimmjow under the eaves. And somehow, as idiotic as it is, that feels like giving ground. He shrugs. “M’ fine.” 

“Sure,” Grimmjow answers, then glances around. “Kisuke put me up. After you had Neliel dump me on his doorstep like an orphan.” 

“That’s the asshole treatment, actually. It’s what assholes get for being assholes. Like you.” 

That expression crosses again, knits Grimmjow’s brows together and visibly tightens his jaw. Ichigo chooses then to walk forward, under the lip of the roof that stops the rain. He’s soaked, standing there looking ever so slightly up at Grimmjow. This close, Ichigo can see the way Grimmjow’s nostrils flare after a bit of movement, and wonders if any scent permeates here. He can’t smell Grimmjow. Not in the gigai. Grimmjow had said the same. Or, maybe that’s just a habit of his.There really is something on his face that hasn’t been there before. Something Ichigo’s stupidly hopeful human brain nearly clocks as being remorseful. But, of course, that’s just wishful thinking again. 

“I asked why you were here,” he says again when Grimmjow gives no response. 

“Came to ask if the offer’s still on the table.” 

The offer. 

Eat me. 

Disgust and anger at himself and the man before him well up in his stomach, heavy enough to make him nauseous. Like hell he’d say yes. Just go back to giving the arrancar whatever the hell he wanted in exchange for nothing but embarrassment a second time? Like fucking hell. Ichigo scoffs, moves past Grimmjow bodily with a shoulder check until he reaches his front door. He doesn’t look back when he says, 

“What do you think?” 

He slams the door shut behind him, leaving Grimmjow in the dark, and the sound of the rain goes with it. 

 

---

It takes three days for Ichigo to go back to the shoten. 

Three days spent with those damn expressions of Grimmjow’s floating around his head like a DVD auto screen, just missing the corners. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say the man looked guilty. But considering he’d never seen that expression on Grimmjow’s face ever, and considering even further that he’d already established the arrancar was just that–an arrancar, he knew that could not be the case. It’s suddenly overwhelmingly frustrating to be a human at all. Why were they so inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to others who’d long since proven they didn’t deserve it? Whatever. All the more proof he needed to see him again, to kick his ass and be reminded of where they stood. 

And in between getting this squared away, he just needed to figure out what the hell was making him care so much . If he’s poisoned with some weird hollow mating virus, maybe Urahara would know a thing or two about it. So the trip would be killing two birds with one stone. That is, of course, if Urahara’s willing to talk. Which he may not be. The guy knew something about everything, and everything else about the least ethical ways to do anything he set his mind to. If Ichigo thought about it too long, it’d be horrifying. 

So, he pretends that little fact away when he knocks on the door and is immediately let in by Ururu. 

“Are you here for Grimmjow-san?” she asks, a bit less meek than she used to be, but not by much. 

Ichigo shrugs his shoulders. “Kinda sorta. Where is he?” 

“Pouting in his room still, probably.” 

“Pouting,” Ichigo repeats, disbelieving. 

“He won’t come out of there.” 

What an immature asshole. Ichigo rolls his eyes, walks the rest of the way in. He scans around the room with a frown. Everything looks normal. Not like a hollow had been living here for the last two weeks. Hah. Hollow. Living. 

“Where’s Urahara?” 

From the kitchen, he hears shuffling, and then the cotton drape is pushed aside, revealing the man in question. “Where indeed! To what do we owe this pleasure, Kurosaki-san? Have you come to let me know you’ve fixed your phone?” 

“My phone?”

“Well, I assumed when my calls and messages went unanswered that it must have been broken.” 

Asshole. Ichigo rolls his eyes, rubs at the back of his neck. “Sorry. I wasn’t feeling up to talking to anyone.” 

“And that’s changed?” 

Glancing to the side, Ichigo juts his chin at Ururu, signaling for her to leave. He really doesn’t want to have this conversation around her. Even if she isn’t technically a kid anymore, she’s always been a little creepy. Which, for the record, he feels like an asshole for thinking but whatever it’s the truth. Technically further, she wasn’t ever a kid at all. Then again, mod souls were still souls. Kon is still someone, even if he was manufactured. In a strange existential train of thought, they sort of all were, if you think about it. Which he doesn’t care to. He doesn’t even want to be here talking to Uaraha, but, well… 

“Not really,” he says, truthfully. “But I’ve been on a roll embarrassing myself around others so I figured it’s your turn to get a front row seat.” 

Urahara leans against the doorway, fanning himself in the heat of the shop. His eyes tell Ichigo everything he needs to know–he’s intrigued. 

“I’m listening.” 

Ichigo takes a deep breath, blows it out. There’s no non-humiliating way to bring this up, so he just shoots himself in the foot and goes for it. “Did I, like, unknowingly step on a hollow land mine by letting Grimmjow feed off my reiryoku before? Do you think that would have any…lasting…effects?” 

Urahara tilts his head. “I’m afraid you’ll need to be more specific. If I remember correctly, your wound healed just fine. Has something else been happening?” 

God, this is the worst. He should have just asked Nel more about it. Even if she took the whole thing in a different direction, like she was some high school girl gushing over crushes. He needed this to be clinical, because that’s all it is. 

“Well…kinda? I mean, uh…” Ichigo scrubs the heels of his palms against his eyes. “Dammit this isn’t working. Never mind.” 

“Does this have anything to do with Neliel-chan's comment about intimacy?” 

When he looks up, Urahara is very obviously enjoying himself, and Ichigo wants to kick him in the face for it. “If he bit me would that do anything, is what I’m asking. I kinda…went hollow in Hueco Mundo before Nel brought him back here. All I could smell was his reiatsu–like a…I dunno, a beacon, or something. And, I felt–do not fucking laugh!” 

Urahara, who’s taken to biting his lip to stifle said laugh, says, “I’m not laughing!”

“You so are! Just tell me if hollows really do take mates and how that works, and then tell me I don’t have anything to worry about because I’m human.” 

“You sound very much like you are worrying about it, though, Kurosaki-san.” 

“Look–do you know anything or not? I’m serious. I’m not freaking out or anything, but it’s weird and I have no idea about any of this. I don’t even know if it’s legit, I mean, why would hollows need a mate? They’re dead.” 

“So are shinigami, if we’re being technical. And yet, marriages occur in Soul Society nonetheless. Children are even born, as you know, if the parents have enough reiryoku to spare. It’s not out of the question for any being, living or not, to desire company, is it?” 

Frowning, Ichigo feels his insides deflate. Any arguments he’d had in favor of this whole concept being bullshit sails right out the window with the point Urahara just made. 

“Okay, well, now I kinda feel like a dick for thinking there was no way Nel was serious.” 

Urahara shrugs. “Beings of any variety are always complex. Hollows, I’d assume, are no different. Theirs is an afterlife more akin to the animal kingdom than human society. If I were to venture a guess, considering this is outside my realm of expertise, I’d say it makes sense that they’d adopt such a term. But, whether you find that inner hollowfied part of you drawn to bloodlust or what have you, you are still human, Kurosaki-san, as you said. Everything is always within your control, your choice. It’s always up to you, hm?” 

More than a little caught off guard, Ichigo can only blink. “Yeah–that’s…you’re right. Thanks.” 

“Well, I’m sure Grimmjow-san is wondering why you haven’t whisked him away for a fun afternoon of new bruises and broken bones yet, so I’ll leave you to it. And, do remember that, teasing aside, my wisdom is always yours, should you ask!” 

“Sure,” Ichigo says, laughing a little. “Thanks. Just don’t mention this conversation to anyone. That means my dad.” 

“Even I do not want to find out what our ex-captain would do if I were to utter a word.” 

“Then we agree on something. See ya.” 

Ichigo walks towards the back, where the room Grimmjow would be staying in is located. Same room he woke up in after feeding the guy for the first time in Hueco Mundo. How did that feel like ages ago already? It’d only been a couple weeks. Every word he’d shared with Urahara just now is flying around in his head a mile a minute, loud and noisy with the rest of his thoughts. Maybe he is an asshole for assuming dead things didn’t need company. That’s honestly not even how he really felt. The whole concept just seems so out of left field to him. None of it makes sense, even now. In a perfect world, he’d be able to ask Grimmjow about it. But… 

Think ‘cause I let you touch my dick piss drunk it means I’m your damn soulmate? 

Stupid.

Yeah, that isn’t happening.

In the hallway, the smell of dust permeates the air, nearly making him sneeze just by breathing through his nose. The door to the room is shut, but Ichigo doesn’t care to respect whatever privacy Grimmjow may try to demand. The walk over here, thinking about it all, had only gotten him worked up, and by the time he arrived, he was more than ready for a fight. Which is exactly what Grimmjow will give him whether he wants to or not. Besides, Ichigo wasn’t lying before when he said his human body was out of practice. Sparring really will do him some good. 

He shoves the door open without warning, and sees Grimmjow sitting on the edge of the bed. Elbows on his knees, his head hangs down as his fingers knead the meat of his neck. It’s a strange sight that stops Ichigo short with a catch to his breath. He looks so human like this. Working out a kink in his neck in real clothes. No jaw mask. No hollow hole. His hair is tousled like he’d just woken up from a nap, he’s even wearing the sweat pants Ichigo had lent him. The same ones Kon was wearing in the gigai. And he’d been planning to have some witty retort in the chamber for when he inevitably got some snark for barging in, but… Grimmjow really does look human. How strange is that. 

“Just gonna stand there gawkin’ at me?” Grimmjow asks without looking up, his voice rough from the comfort of his ministrations. 

Ichigo stands up straighter, scowls. “How’d you know it was me?” 

Grimmjow snorts, looks up at him through strands of blue hair. “Don’t piss me off, Kurosaki.” The second their eyes meet, the arrancar’s pupils dilate and constrict. “Came to get your ass kicked?”

A bit defensive, Ichigo says, “I came to kick your ass, yeah.” 

The kneading on his neck stops. Grimmjow grins, pushes up from the bed and rolls his shoulders. “Knew you’d come around. Let’s go.” 

“I haven’t come around to anything. You’re still a total bastard. Just figured I should punch you in the face for it when you’re not already beat to hell.” 

“Oh, yeah?” 

“Yeah, I’m a really nice guy like that.” 

Ichigo walks ahead to the bunker, does not turn back to see what expression Grimmjow’s wearing. He doesn’t know if his comments were petulant or intimidating but judging by the man he’d said them to, he already knows the answer and it isn’t helping his mood. Being away from Grimmjow for any length of time, he somehow manages to forget the type of aura he exudes. Like, no matter what, Ichigo will always just be that fifteen year old kid who got way in over his head one night in Karakura. One of the first times he’d ever fought as a shinigami at all. And he’ll never forget it, the way the hollow who’d showed up out of nowhere had looked at him from the sky, had clocked his movements and stamina just by fighting him for half a minute. He’d been a goal from the start. Something to beat. A level to obtain. And when he’d found out it’d been the same for Grimmjow, that was…exciting. He’d been excited to fight him again, even if he hadn’t admitted it. 

He’s almost excited now.

“Stakes?” Grimmjow asks once they’re down there. 

“I already know what you want,” Ichigo says, stretching as much as he can before they start. “And you still haven’t held up your part since the last time I beat you, so you’ll just owe me again. You like that, or something?” 

He receives a growl. “You’re in a real shitty mood.” 

“Am I?” Ichigo says, feigning contemplation before he shrugs, and gets into stance. “No nut kicks.” 

“You’re the only fucker who fights like that.” 

“I warned you. Not my fault you don’t listen.” 

Grimmjow doesn’t respond to the bait, he only begins. It’s different fighting him in this body, for both of them. Grimmjow doesn’t have his new black-tipped claws to play with here, nor does he have his sword. But neither of those matter too much as the man has always been keen on using his hands first before anything else. Feral, even in the way he fights. And even though the gigai holds the majority of his abilities in check, it’s still built to withstand a hell of a lot. Definitely more formidable than a human body, and easier to mend. But Ichigo won’t let that matter much. 

He’s angry enough to fight as hard as he needs to. 

Grimmjow comes at him by kicking off the dirt and swinging what looks like his entire body weight into a right hook. Ichigo leans, anticipating to dodge, but the arrancar fakes him out, pulls the punch and shifts his stance to kick him brutally in the side. Expelling his breath in a cough, Ichigo lands in the dirt. 

“You’re outta practice.” 

“That was…” Ichigo says, shoving himself back up. “A cheap hit.” 

“A hit’s a hit, Kurosaki. Don’t let your guard down next time.” 

They fight a bit harder than Ichigo intends. 

Fists flying, it only takes him a few minutes to recalibrate his techniques against Grimmjow to this body’s strength. Lucky for him, even without his sword, Grimmjow moves the same. Of course he would. But once he realizes that, it’s easier to keep up despite the way his muscles cry out to him over their lack of use. A punch thrown towards his face is caught in his palm with a loud smack and he uses the momentary shock of it to bring a knee harshly into Grimmjow’s gut. For a while, it’s trading blows, and sidestepping kicks. But the tone changes when Grimmjow commits a bit too much to a punch, and Ichigo uses that momentum to grab his wrist, turns and flings him over onto his back. 

The air is forced from Grimmjow’s lungs as Ichigo descends on him, hit after hit until it’s all the other can do to block. Even like this, Grimmjow is in his element. Blood-stained teeth outlined by a rabid grin. He lives for this, even as Ichigo punches him square in the nose and his face erupts like a faucet. Grimmjow even sits up, and bashes his skull against Ichigo’s, giving his nose the same treatment. They grapple in the dust and dirt, panting and spattered in crimson, before Ichigo finally gets Grimmjow on his belly, pinned with a forearm to the back of his neck. 

“Yield,” Ichigo says, low and hot against the back of Grimmjow’s ear. Like this, he can almost smell it. That scent…the one he feels the pits of his gut roil for. But it’s faint, and not nearly enough. He almost leans closer, just to see if that would give him more. But Grimmjow’s voice is a bucket of cold water that cuts through the fog.

“Fuck you. Get off me.” 

The pressure increases, elbow digging into the gigai’s cervical vertebrae. Grimmjow growls, and Ichigo only says again, shoving himself up to put a bit of distance between them, “Yield.” 

A tense few seconds pass. Ichigo can nearly hear the way Grimmjow grinds his enamel. But then a hand moves out, and smacks the dirt twice, indicating a give. 

Ichigo moves off Grimmjow so quickly that he’s nearly dizzy when he stands. His heart is racing, and his knuckles hurt. So does his face. Honestly, he’d forgotten how much it sucks to fight in this body. If the vibes were better, he’d opt to use the springs. Heal up a bit before going home. But the thought of resting with Grimmjow when his brain was still a basket of bees where the hollow is concerned doesn’t entice him like it normally would. He dusts himself off, then says, 

“The spring should heal the gigai too. If you want it. I’m taking off.” 

There isn’t anything else to say, anyway. He turns, eyes moving over to that impossibly long ladder–another shitty thing about being down here in his physical body. Climbing up that thing took almost ten minutes. There should be an elevator or something at least, for the way up. But, just as he’s about to start walking, Grimmjow grabs his wrist in a sudden, hard vice. 

“Quit bein’ pissed at me.” 

Ichigo turns to look at him again. That expression is there. The one his human heart wants to get wrapped up in. When he tests whether he can take his hand back or not, Grimmjow holds tight. And for a moment, he doesn’t know what to say. Stop being pissed at him? Why would Grimmjow care? Why would it matter? Weren’t they always relatively pissed at one another? He’d hardly ever been around Grimmjow without there being at least some level of animosity towards each other. And the only time it didn’t feel that way had been a lie. So, what was he playing at? 

It doesn’t matter. He won’t be taking the bait. 

Ichigo yanks on his arm again, and this time, it’s dropped. He says, 

“I’ll see you next week.” 

Grimmjow says nothing as he leaves, but Ichigo can feel those eyes on him the whole way up the ladder. 

The walk home has the bees acting up. The ones inside his head that won’t stop their buzzing. Some days lately they’re even louder than the cicadas that have started to scream around every corner through the summer sun. Quit bein’ pissed at me. The words keep replaying in his mind, over and over and over again. Why? What possessed Grimmjow to say something like that? Something that gave him away as caring one way or the next. It’s out of character. Isn’t it? Confusing. Oh well. Let him rot without being acquiesced. Asshole. He deserved to wallow for a while. After all the times Ichigo has spent in his life hopping to for everyone around him. Let one bastard suffer under his ire. 

Distracted, nearly runs directly into Keigo when he turns a corner. 

Stumbling backwards, Keigo screams like a child, and throws his arms up in the air. “Dammit, Ichigo! You can’t just go around jumping out at people like that.” 

Ichigo, who had easily sidestepped him and watched his old friend nearly hit a vending machine face first, says, “Yeah, sorry, you know me.” 

“What, uh, what brings you here?” 

“What brings me to the sidewalk? I’m on my way home.”

“Oh, right!” he says, and laughs, scratching the back of his neck. “Hey, I haven’t seen you in a wh–holy shit! Your face!”  

Ichigo does not care for conversation alone with Keigo on a good day, let alone now. He sighs. “Yeah, I got into it with some guys a few blocks over. It’s nothing bad.” 

Despite not having ever been in a fight in his life for as long as Ichigo has known him, Keigo says, “You should’a called me, man. I would have been there for you.” 

Ichigo deadpans. Changes the subject. “Hey, Inoue was telling me about the beach. Am I invited, or what?” It’s nice to turn the tables on others every now and again. 

Immediately, Keigo becomes nervous. Probably because he knows if Inoue told Ichigo, then his little condom bragging would be a cat out of the bag too. Not that Ichigo intends to bring that up. In fact, he’d rather entirely forget that he even had the conversation to begin with. And if this were anyone else, he may be a little concerned over inserting himself into plans that weren’t made with or for him. But, this is Keigo. You gotta fuck with him every so often or he withers away and dies. Like a dog that learned being annoying is the only thing that gets him attention, even if it’s being yelled at. Keigo says, too loud, 

“Of course you’re invited! Duh! You kidding? My almost best friend? My third main guy? Like I’d leave you out.” 

“Don’t oversell it or anything.” 

Keigo laughs. “Sorry, I was just doing a mental count! My aunt will kill me if I bring too many people over. But I think we have the roster capped now at…” He trails off, counting on his fingers. “Eight!” 

Ichigo briefly runs over his list of friends in his head. The number sounds about right. “Sure,” he says. “But she does know you’re bringing some people over, right? Don’t get excommunicated for a beach party.” 

“Yeah, she knows!” He laughs again, and Ichigo gets the distinct feeling there’s something up that he’s not privy to. Luckily for him, he doesn’t care enough to ask. 

“Okay, well, I’ll see you later. I’ll get more details from Ishida and them.” 

“Sounds good, Ichigo! Catch ya!” 

The rest of the walk home, at least, his thoughts aren’t centered on Grimmjow, but of what sort of weekend it will be like dealing with Keigo in close quarters for upwards of seventy two hours. Luckily for him, if eight people were going, then Mizuiro and Tatsuki had to be two of them–which tracks, since Inoue mentioned them–so there will be plenty of buffers in between to keep any annoyance at a minimum. 

No one’s home when he gets there, so he doesn’t have to hear any shit about his face. But when he gets upstairs to his bedroom, he finds Kon laying on it in the middle. 

“Hey, there you are,” Ichigo says. 

Kon springs up like a plushie electrocuted. “Ichigo! Hi!” 

Why is there always something up in this house? 

“Hi. Are you gonna be acting weird again?” 

“Weird?” Kon says, fluffing a pillow and attempting to straighten a blanket. “Who’s weird and which movie did they play in? Ha. Get it?” 

“Not even a little.” Ichigo watches Kon fret about the bed as if clothes don’t litter the floor and as if the entire thing isn’t a mess. “Don’t bother. I need to wash those sheets.” 

“Why!?” 

“...Because it’s been over a week? Why are you being jumpy?” He walks over, grabs the corner from Kon’s grip, and starts stripping the bed. His body hurts, and he really just wants to bathe and relax. But getting finished with all of that only to come back to a dirty bed? No way. Besides, Yuzu is always harping on him about bed bugs. She takes it upon herself to do any laundry she can get her hands on, but long since claimed it’s every man for himself where bedding is concerned. Not that he blames her, and not that he’d want her washing his sheets anyway. 

“I’m not being jumpy,” Kon says, and hops down from the bed. “I just haven’t seen you recently. Can’t a guy feel left behind?” 

Ichigo frowns. “I feel like I haven’t seen you recently. Every time I ask where you are, you’re gone. Is everything okay? You still never told me what happened the other day–why you were missing all night.” 

“Ohh, that’ll come in time, Ichigo. You’re always so impatient.” 

Ichigo yanks the fitted sheet off with a bit too much strength. “Whatever. I saw Keigo on my way home just now. He nearly face-planted into glass.” 

“Who’s Keigo?” 

Armful of bedding, Ichigo turns to his friend with a confused expression. “Keigo Asano. High school friend. You definitely know him.” 

“Hmm.” Kon taps a paw to his chin. “Sorry. There’s only so much I keep up here in the ol’ wool trap. And Inoue-san’s lovely chest takes up most of the room.” 

“You’re awful. And it’s polyfill at best, in there. No way you got wool.” 

“Always tearing a man down, aren’t you, Ichigo?” Kon shakes his head. “I’ll be on my way for now. Yuzu said if I met her at the grocery store, I’d be able to pick something out to eat next time I have a body.” 

Ichigo thinks for a few seconds. “Want to take mine?” 

Any strangeness in Kon’s attitude dissolves right then and there as he leaps back up onto the bare bed. “Do you mean it? Maybe you do care after all! But what’s the catch? You never wanna give it up when you’re moody.” 

“I’m not moody.” 

“He said,” Kon whispers, “moodily.” 

“I had a sparring match with Grimmjow and my face hurts. So it’s a cheap deal anyway.” 

Kon gasps. “I’ll take it! The old ladies that hang out in the park on the way to the store always dote on you when you’re beat up.” 

“They… who! ?” 

“Just never you mind. Give it!” 

“Kon please don’t ever do anything that will get me arrested or on the front page of any paper, okay? I don’t even want to know where whatever you just said could go.” He picks up his friend, who’s now crossing his arms. 

“I wish you’d trust me after all this time.” 

And, for some reason, maybe it’s because his emotions have been a bit raw lately, Ichigo softens and says, “‘Course I trust you. You’re one of my closest friends. You know that right? If something’s going on, you’d tell me, wouldn’t you?” 

Kon stares at him for a moment, those beady eyes of his seemingly to glisten. With more feeling than Ichigo expected, he says, “Yeah. I will.” 

Loosing a breath and giving the other a bit of a smile, he says, “Okay, cool. No more mushy shit for at least the next year. Get some IcyHot while you’re out, yeah?” And with a hard press to Kon’s chest, the green soul bead pops out of his tiny lion’s mouth. Ichigo swallows it, and is suddenly blissfully free from body pain. 

Kon groans once he’s inside, but takes it like a champ. “Man, you weren’t kidding…Grimmjow really has it out for your kidneys, doesn’t he?” 

“I’m not kidding about the IcyHot either.”

“Yeah, yeah. Y’know–Icy to dull the pain, then hot to relax it away…Who thought of that? It’s so simple. But how do they make it cold first? How does it know? It’s not like one of those ice packs that you have to break for it to work. It’s just a patch that’s already there! What’s the secret?” Ichigo watches his own body shake its head. “Some wonders, Ichigo, I’m telling you…some wonders.” 

“Bye.” 

Ichigo flops back onto his mattress, and lets himself doze off for a bit. Later, he’ll make sure his sheets are washed. And when Kon gets back with Yuzu, he’ll take a shower. Or, maybe if he’s feeling extra nice, he’ll let Kon take it. Like a thanks for walking Yuzu home and actually being able to help her carry things. Maybe he’s too harsh on the guy. Maybe he needs to be better about Kon knowing he’s important.

He can do that much, at least.

 

---

 

It’s the following Saturday when Chad invites him out to the bar. 

Being a man of few words, the text he’d received had only been two emojis: the beer cup and a question mark. Ichigo had asked him if this is what adult life constituted as–frequenting the local bar every Saturday and losing at pool. Chad had sent back only, lol. 8? 

His thoughts and prayers to whoever the guy ever decided to date. 

He doesn’t spend much time getting ready, which is par the course, but he’s more than ready to cut a little loose and have a good night. His spar with Grimmjow had been last Friday, and the entire week he’d wondered when he would make his way back for another, what possessed him to even show up the first time, let alone doing it again. Friday had come and went again, and it’d been in the back of his mind like a burrowing mite the entire day. Annoying. He didn’t need to be on any discernible schedule when it came to this. Sure, the spars were half as much for him as they were for Grimmjow, and sure he’d told the guy he’d see him next week. But when the time came to head over he just…couldn’t is the wrong word. 

Or, at least, that’s what he tells himself. 

He enters the bar and spots Chad easily. It’s not too crowded here, but there are a good amount of people. Some Ichigo recognizes, and some he doesn’t. He doesn’t pay them much mind and neither do they. Ichigo raises his hand in greeting, leans elbows onto the table without sitting down just yet. Chad sits there with a beer, and another mixed drink. 

“Hey,” Ichigo says, eyeing the two glasses. “Who’s here?” 

“Hey, Ichigo,” Chad says, and takes a swig of his own. “Ran into someone today. Kinda threw me for a loop.” 

“If it’s Keigo,” Ichigo starts, “he’s been acting weird. Don’t read into it.” 

“It wasn’t.” Chad’s eyes move off just a bit behind him, and Ichigo turns to follow the direction of that stare. From around the corner where the bathroom’s located, Grimmjow is walking towards them, still fixing his belts. Ichigo feels any excitement he had for the night wither away and die right then and there. 

“What the hell is he doing here?” Ichigo asks, looking away from the arrancar in question and giving Chad a frown. 

“You bailed on our fight yesterday, Kurosaki. Figured I’d hunt you down and kick your ass for it.” 

Chad says, “Does someone want to fill me in on why Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez is in a gigai living with Urahara?” 

Ichigo sighs. “It’s a long stor–.”

“None’a your fuckin’ business that’s why.” 

Chad merely hums. “As long as everything’s okay, we can leave it at that.” 

Is everything okay? Ichigo doesn’t care to ponder it. In fact, with this little surprise, he’s about to leave. If he’d wanted to see Grimmjow, he would have shown up for their fight yesterday. He eyes the door, wondering how much more of an issue he intends to make this tonight. Could be easier to just grin and bear it. If Chad reports any of this back to Ishida or Inoue, he’d probably be in for an interrogation, which sounds way too exhausting to even entertain. But, he doesn’t think he’d be any good at that either. 

Grimmjow raps his knuckles against the table, turns to walk over to the bar without a word. Ichigo eyes the drink on the table that’s nearly full. 

“Everything is okay, isn’t it?” Chad asks, snapping Ichigo out of his loud brain. 

“Yeah–of course it is,” he says, feeling like a dirty liar. But he’s not getting into the ins and outs of the whole ordeal. Especially not while Grimmjow is here. What, is he a total masochist? No way. Time to change the subject. “Hey, are you going to the beach with everyone?” 

“Yeah, Tatsuki was telling me about it. Something about Keigo’s aunt?” 

“Yeah, guess she’s going out of town.” 

“It’s been a while since I’ve seen the ocean. Think it’ll be just what I need. I’m looking forward to it. Are you going?” 

Ichigo shrugs. “Yeah, guess so. Can’t be that bad. Especially if you’re gonna be there.” 

Chad gives him the barest hints of a smile just as Grimmjow returns, and sets a drink in front of him. The same thing he’d been drinking when they’d come here together that night. 

“Did you…” he says at first, trying and failing for words. “Is this mine?” 

Grimmjow doesn’t answer him at first, just takes his seat at the table and picks up his own drink. “Ain’t mine.” 

It feels like his world’s axis tilts, just for a moment. A reality in which Grimmjow got him a drink without him asking. It’s weird, and also not a big deal. Who knows how hungry he is by now. Probably just trying to get back into any good graces necessary to eat again. Yeah, that had to be it. Still, Ichigo takes the glass, condensation already beading up on the chilled surface. He says, 

“Thanks,” and chances a look up at Grimmjow who seems to clench his jaw before looking away. 

“Anyway,” Grimmjow says, looking to Chad. “Met you before, yeah? In Hueco Mundo.” 

Chad nods. “Yeah. Me, Inoue-san, and Urahara.” 

“Inoue…bitch with the rack, right?” 

Ichigo’s mouth falls open, but before he can say anything, Chad moves on as if no comment had been made. He says, “Sure. She healed Ichigo back before you fought him in Las Noches.” 

“Yeah, I remember.” Grimmjow cracks his neck, scratches at it. “Truth is, shit’s a little fuzzy for me right now. Mask is busted.” 

“So much for none of your business…” Ichigo mutters before he can stop himself, and immediately there are two sets of eyes on him. Chad who looks a little confused, and Grimmjow who raises a brow and smirks at him. 

“What’s that?” 

“Nothing.” 

“How did that happen?” Chad asks, frowning. 

Grimmjow shrugs, takes a drink. “Workin’ on that part.”

The night moves easily enough, though Ichigo can’t shake the strangeness of watching Grimmjow interact with Chad in such an easy way. He laughs sometimes, elbows Chad in the side another. If he didn’t know any better, it’d almost be like they were friends. Which is ridiculous, of course, because Grimmjow doesn’t have any friends. They’re just talking. Getting along. Which is the best case scenario after all. So, why the hell is bugging him as much as it is? Why is he irritated beyond all reason? Grimmjow can talk to whoever the hell he wants. No skin off his nose. It’s not like he’s…

Dammit. 

God dammit, he really is hopeless. 

They order drinks, but not too many. Enough for Ichigo to start feeling a little buzz and know it’s time he went home lest he embarrass himself again in new and inventively mortifying ways. Chad and Grimmjow are finishing up a game of darts when he announces his departure, setting a few bills down on the bar to cover his share. He receives a wave from Chad, and nothing but an unreadable stare from Grimmjow, but that’s fine. He’s not looking for anything more. 

The night air is cool and crisp. Ichigo breathes it in the second he’s outside, and for a moment, he just stands there–hands in his pockets, face tilted up towards the moon, and a nice thrum of alcohol in his veins. It’s much better out here anyway. Quieter. No Chad laughing at a crass joke made by Grimmjow. And no one to catch on to how profoundly idiotic he is. Much better. 

A second pair of footsteps fall into line with his own as soon as he gets going. 

He doesn’t have to look over to know who it is, though he does blow out a sigh. 

“I’m not in the mood to fight,” he says. 

Grimmjow shrugs. “Figured. Too damn clumsy when you’re drunk.” 

Ichigo scowls. “I’m not drunk.”

“What the hell ever.” 

Their footsteps echo in the night, reminiscent and yet so different from the last time they’d left that bar together. The shame of the memory is an ever-burning ember. “So, if you’re not here to fight, then what is it?” 

Grimmjow doesn’t answer at first, which Ichigo is used to. He’s a man who works on his own time where any questions are concerned. It’s not annoying. In fact, Ichigo doesn’t even mind. The silence is less judgmental when the focus isn’t on him. 

“You’re still pissed at me,” Grimmjow says, matter of fact. 

And, maybe it is the small bit of alcohol that inclines him to give any sort of answer outside of, Yeah, and? but Ichigo chews on his lip for a bit before doing that. It wouldn’t be helpful. Grimmjow doesn’t seem to be in the mood for blood which is honestly the best case scenario always. Not that Ichigo minds pissing him off, or pushing his buttons. But it’s always nice to talk to someone when they aren’t belligerent. 

“I wouldn’t be if you’d just tell me what the hell you were thinking.” And it’s the truth. If Grimmjow had been honest about his intentions from the start, if he’d explained his perspective better, maybe they could have thought of a different solution. Ichigo wouldn’t have had to dig a six foot hole for himself to fall into, face first, and they wouldn’t be here now. He’s not quite sure where else they could be, but that isn’t the point. 

Grimmjow rolls his eyes, hands shoved into his uniform as he looks up at the sky while they walk. “Hell does it matter what I can say about shit when you’re pissed at what I did ?” 

Ichigo shrugs. “Technically, I’m like really pissed at what you said, too, asshole. More than ditching me, for sure. But–it matters.” For a minute, he’s silent, staring at the ground and kicking a stray rock in his path. “I just wanted to help you. And–before you say anything annoying, I know you can’t stand that. But I don’t get why. If you’d help me get it, I could have helped better. But you didn’t trust me at all, and I just ended up making a total fool of myself. Which sucks, by the way. It really fucking sucks. And I’m blaming you for it, so…Whatever. It doesn’t matter. We can just forget it.” 

And he thinks, maybe that’s exactly what Grimmjow intends to do, because they don’t talk for the rest of the walk. Lucky for him, it’s not as uncomfortable as he worried it may be. Grimmjow’s presence beside him is comforting, even if Ichigo wished it weren’t. Even if he has to look away when they pass by the river bank. He just needs to get home, and put this night, this month, behind him. He needed to get over what happened between them. Grimmjow clearly didn’t care. He’s just wrapped up in whether or not Ichigo is mad at him. Which is strange, but it’s not going to be out of any depth. Like he’d said, he just wants a fight. 

That’s all he’s ever wanted. 

They arrive at Ichigo’s house, the silence stretching out to the door. Despite everything he’d been mulling over on the way, he almost doesn’t want to go inside. Doesn’t want to leave. As stupid as it may sound, he meant what he’d said earlier. At the end of the day, all he really wants is to understand Grimmjow, to get it, to get him. 

Is that a fool’s errand? 

“That night,” Grimmjow starts, startling Ichigo out of his own brooding silence. “You want the truth?” 

Ichigo frowns, fights the heat rising to his cheeks at the memory. “Not if you’re just going to repeat what you said last time. I get it. I’m a stupid dipshit who fell hook, line, and sinker for–.” 

“Maybe shut the fuck up for a second and let me tell it, yeah?” 

Crossing his arms and taking a breath, Ichigo blows it out to the side. “Fine. Go ahead. But you’re still within punching distance.” 

Lighting his nerves on fire and making his heart trip over itself, Grimmjow surprises him by giving the tiniest smirk that, for the first time, looks nearly fond. “Yeah, I know. So, where was I?” he says, and leans back against the wall of the Kurosaki house, arms folded. 

“You hadn’t started.” 

“That’s right,” he says. “Some little shit interrupted me after he’s the one who asked me to start spillin’ my guts.” 

Ichigo can’t help himself, he’s weak. He laughs. He doesn’t say anything, just indicates with a hand for Grimmjow to continue. 

The arrancar’s face turns dark after that, jaw setting as his eyes look away. Not out of any submission, but studying the buildings around them, the sky. He takes his time, breathing long and slow. 

“This meat sack’s skin,” he starts, voice low, and like he’s taking particular care to admit the words. “It’s thinner. No hierro, no nothin’, just…” His brows furrow, and that gaze is trained on the concrete now in a glare, as if answers will well up from the split where a dandelion pushes through cement. When he looks up again, those eyes are dead set on Ichigo, intense and like a black hole–sucking him in, endlessly. Ichigo doesn’t talk. Doesn’t so much as move a muscle, afraid he’ll shatter whatever this is. Grimmjow runs a hand through his hair, rough, and continues. 

“Haven’t felt touch like that since I died, Kurosaki. Get it? Hollows don’t feel sensation like a human. It’s bone armor and hunger and pain. Arrancar are the same. Every time we fought, I felt where you hit, but unless it pierced the hierro it’s like I’m feelin’ it through leather, or somethin’. That night… You motherfucker… Had to go and make me remember how damn soft humans are.” He shrugs, as if he didn’t just stun Ichigo into silence. “Yeah, I wanted to get you trashed so you’d pass out and not give me shit about takin’ matters into my own hands. But the rest?” He shakes his head. “Wasn’t all part of the plan, or some shit. Just got carried away with you.”

For nearly an entire minute, all Ichigo can do is stare at him. Touch? Why hadn’t he thought of that before? He knew about the hierro all arrancar possessed, how it shielded them from the bitter cold of Hueco Mundo as well as any typical blade or claw. But he hadn’t for even a moment throughout these last couple weeks thought that there may be a difference in how the world felt. And suddenly the concept of Grimmjow feeling both again and for the first time how it felt to have skin against skin opens an aching pit within his chest. 

“Oh,” is all he says at first, digesting everything. A furrow pulls at his brows. “So why’d you make such a jackass comment, huh? You could have at least spared me the added humiliation of Nel over hearing it.” 

Grimmjow gets that expression on his face again, the one Ichigo can’t pin down. The one he wants to believe is regret, even as he reminds himself it isn’t. And it doesn’t matter anyway, because it vanishes in the next instant, replaced with something harder. He says, “Neliel needs to keep her shit to herself.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean? This is exactly what I’m talking about! That’s vague as all hell. I don’t get it! I have no clue what you’re talking about!” 

“And who the hell says you need to?!” 

Ichigo balls his hands into fists, feels his nails cutting crescents into his palm. To hell with this. “Fine,” he says, and starts to walk past Grimmjow. He doesn’t want to deal with this. He’ll only end up saying something to further his own embarrassment. “I’ll come by on Friday to spar. For real. Thanks for telling me what you did.” 

“Kurosaki–.”

But for the second time in a row, Grimmjow is left outside with a door slammed in his face, and only the stars to judge him. 

Notes:

10k words in this chapter and somehow I feel like nothing happens HAHA. I'm not used to slow burns tbh (she says this knowing she went wild in ch4) BUT ! I hope you all are enjoying it! What was up with that sock?
Next I'll be updating Confined on Grimmjow's birthday (7/31), so please look forward to it!
Tell me what you think? <3