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I fucking hate Fridays, Grimmjow decided while being thrown unceremoniously on a stretcher. They were in the process of strapping his arm when one of the ER idiots surrounding him audibly gasped.
'That dude is a Sentinel!'
No fucking shit, he wanted to snarl back. Instead, he choked on a very metallic tasting mouthful of blood and was blinded by the neon lights of the ceiling.
‘You call Kurosaki. Now,’ ordered the guy who was apparently running this shitshow.
The smells started blurring together and so did the sounds, signaling the incoming sensory overload. His clothes started to itch against his skin, and Grimmjow could hear the rushing waters of the nearby river, taste the grease on someone’s hands who’d just eaten fries, feel his eyes water at the sight of artificial lights suddenly more blinding than the sun at noon -
He felt it prickling against his skin, the dust, the air; he heard every single of their thunderous heartbeats merge together in a heavy, rhythmic humming -
‘Sentinel.’
The ER was suddenly eerily silent, and though thunder was still rolling, far away and muted, only the faint scent of rain remained.
Grimmjow opened his eyes to the vertigo of a very, very vertical reality.
‘Hey,’ someone whispered at his shoulder, in his head, at his face; he couldn’t quite tell where it was coming from, that soothing voice that would guide him out of the sensory overload. ‘It’s fine. You’re at Karakura General,’ it went on, not wasting any words in shitty explanations.
Good, Grimmjow thought, craning his neck to see more of that strangely shaped world he had been led into. He idly wondered if the sun and moon raised in opposites as well, and what else he’d get to see before the Guide decided to send him back to his own world - or if he’d see the Guide at all. They usually did their jobs and left, not wanting to risk an accidental bond or the secrecy of their status - but this one felt different.
‘Sorry about the rain smell,’ came the unexpected apology, although sounding a bit hollow, like the words had lost their meaning after being repeated too much.
‘I don’t care,’ he muttered, his arrowed senses coming to a stop when he finally saw him.
Grimmjow noticed the orange hair first, bright against the blue of the sky and skyscrappers, and then the oversized black sweater pooling at his hands and hips; eyes of liquid amber bored into his as the Guide took flesh in this world, no longer a disarticulated voice.
‘Yo,’ he said with a warm, welcoming smile, holding up one hand in a mock military salute. ‘I’m Ichigo.’
‘Grimmjow,’ he found himself answering, still looking around.
They were standing on the side of a skyscraper, and around them many other towered above a ground he could not see; the sky seemed just as far and impossible to reach. There were a few clouds here and there, moving slowly across a vivid blue sky.
‘Your arm is in pretty bad shape,’ the Guide - Ichigo , informed him, his breath fogging slightly in the air. ‘They’re taking you to surgery. It will take four hours, give or take. You’ll be fine,’ he added, and Grimmjow noticed his long hair was bound in an ornate clasp at the back of his head.
Something not entirely new fluttered in his chest as he thought, pretty.
‘I’ll be with you until it’s finished. You went under pretty hard,’ Ichigo explained, a mocking smile tugging at his lips as a lazy cloud hid the sun for a few seconds, throwing its shapeless shadow unto them.
Inside themselves, four hours could mean three minutes or three weeks; keeping the clock ticking at the same rhythm in and out was a feat only a few could manage, and only after a long and rigorous training. Every city had a special treatment center for kids who went too deep, who wandered too far inside their own mindworld to come back without help. Sometimes, they remained trapped for months - and, in the worst cases, entire years. Presenting them with unbonded Sentinels and Guides sometimes helped - Grimmjow knew a few who were brought back by the presence of a potential mate. He’d visited one of those wards when he was nine, and then again when he was thirteen, and countless other times he did not remember, when the smells and sounds and lights had become too awful to bear without the help of a Guide. Each time it had felt the same, like going to a shelter to pick an abandoned puppy and bring it home and hope, hope it would be the one.
Grimmjow was much older now, and knew the outside world was void of such hollow promises - the few regulars hired by Nel were enough to keep him grounded without a permanent bond.
‘Ah, your boss is here.’
‘Nel ?’
A pause. ‘Yeah. She’s making faces on the glass door. Apparently, she’s not pleased about the hospital paperwork.’
It sounded just like her.
Ichigo muffled a laugh. ‘Surgery is finished, by the way. It went well,’ he went on, conversationally. Then, he extended his hand towards him, an enigmatic smile on his lips. ‘Time to get you home, Grimmjow.’
.
The first thing he noticed upon waking up was not the dimmed lights or the smell of that cheap perfume Nel loved so much - it was his eyes. They were not the color of molten gold but of a muddy, ordinary brown. He still had the long orange hair and the soothing rain scent, his gift slowly awakening Grimmjow’s dulled senses.
‘Hello,’ Ichigo said, keeping his voice low and settling a cool hand against his arm to keep him grounded. He laced their fingers together after a few seconds, and checked his vitals on the mercifully silent machines. Neliel was nowhere to be seen, and that was probably for the best.
‘Fuck,’ was all Grimmjow could manage, his throat parched and his head slightly pounding. His whole body was pleasantly numb, even if he knew that was just a side-effect of guidance combined with morphine.
‘Yeah, I can relate,’ Ichigo smiled a little, not overly shocked by the amount of bandages or the slight smell of blood lingering in the room. ‘I’m gonna go, now.’
Grimmjow felt like protesting, but he was too exhausted to do much more than groan and close his eyes. Ichigo’s hand left his. Yet, he found himself trying to reach out to that painfully vertical world - he pushed tentatively against it, exhaling a long and painful breath when his mind found only silence.
His blue eyes opened again, predatory in the low light.
‘I’m unbonded, so I’m not staying. Inoue-san will take care of you for the rest of the night.’ Ichigo argued against his silent taunting, retracting back into himself. ‘Don’t look at me like that,’ he added with a stern gaze.
‘Like hell,’ Grimmjow tried to insist, ready to push for just a little more of this - he could feel flesh knitting itself together inside his wounded arm, the nerves the muscles and everything down to a cellular level singing in unison with Ichigo’s presence.
They were compatible enough that it actually began to hurt when Ichigo took another step towards the door.
‘Kurosaki-kun,’ someone greeted him, her high-pitched voice like nails on a chalkboard.
Grimmjow’s eyes went to the door, where a girl stood with a warm coffee in one hand and her coat in the other; she smelled like vanilla and freshly baked cookies, and everything in her was so painfully happy and full of sunshine that Grimmjow couldn’t refrain a gagging sound.
She fucking reeked.
Then, in the blink of an eye, Ichigo was gone without a goodbye, and everything became a lot sharper. That Inoue girl took his place at his side, put her small, soft and warm hand into his and lulled him to sleep with a song.
.
Karin was a very welcomed anchor when Ichigo came home that night, his coat dripping fat droplets of rain on the kitchen floor and his hair all tangled from the weather. Yuzu was asleep in front of the TV, and their dad had been called to someone’s house for a nasty case of flu.
‘Next time you accidentally start bonding with a total stranger,’ his sister told him dryly, combing through his wet mane, ‘just fucking call me. Or Dad.’
‘I know,’ Ichigo whispered, utterly exhausted.
‘Yeah, yeah - you always say that, Ichi-nii,’ she scolded him, working on a particularly hard knot and tugging painfully at his hair. ‘You should be more careful, is all.’
‘I know,’ he repeated, his voice sounding all the more hollow.
‘... Yeah, right. Have you considered that maybe he’s, you know, the one ?’
‘Karin,’ Ichigo sighed heavily, ‘you know I don’t want -’
‘Yeah, you don’t want a mate yet, yada yada,’ Karin groaned, mercifully letting it go even if it was just for now. ‘You hungry? There’s leftover curry in the fridge.’
‘I’m showering first,’ he muttered, putting a stop to Karin’s incessant tugging and picking up his coat.
Ichigo hung it in the hall, along with his sisters’, and wandered upstairs. Maybe he should have stayed with that Sentinel - maybe he should have followed him to that promised world of glistening white sands and catch more than a glimpse of the half-eaten moon residing in its skies. And, instead of being afraid of this hollow, foreign land of nightmares, he’d been exhilarated by that brief, evanescent taste of chaos that Grimmjow had pushed his way like an offering. Come and see, Ichigo had almost heard, the taunting blue eyes of the Sentinel on him.
Come and see.
.
‘You feeling better?’ Karin asked him when he came back downstairs, his stomach rumbling at the smell of curry.
‘Yeah, thanks,’ he answered, digging in the plate in front of him.
Yuzu was nowhere to be seen, probably off to her own bed now that he was home. She often waited for him in the evenings, her cup of hot cocoa long gone cold when he came back. Ishida often shouldered the emotional load of a hospital full of hurt and scared people during their work days, even though he was already bonded with Inoue. It wouldn’t last long, though - they were planning to have a kid, and his protective Sentinel instincts would kick in.
Karin was eyeing him, bored and frustrated, her lips a thin angry line.
‘You think I should give it a go,’ Ichigo guessed, his uneasy smile badly hiding his fear.
‘You touched him, didn’t you?’
Ichigo looked at his food, finding it hard to lie under her gaze. ‘I did. But I had to!’
‘Yeah, I know you’re careful and shit,’ Karin pondered, her fingers drumming a uneven rhythm on the wooden table.
Ichigo eyed her, wondering where her thoughts went. She was too young to remember his short stay at what he’d gently dubbed the Lost Guides Ward, but could still feel its scar on her brother. He had been eight years old, eleven months and twenty-three days, proud and loud, before the silence of his mother’s death had settled in, luring him farther and farther inside himself. Ichigo had spent a week in the watery darkness of his unshaped mind, turning it into that landscape of blue skies and white clouds, of towering skyscrapers that sometimes saw the rain fall aslant or in reverse. He had woken up, nine years and twenty-one days old, powerful and unexpectedly ready to face the harshness of the world.
The teachers at Karakura’s Guide School had told him he was gifted.
Ichigo had not wanted any of it.
‘Don’t get your panties in a twist, big bro,’ Karin told him with one of her usual shitty smiles. ‘What are the chances you’re his mate? Probably none.’
He glared at her, wondering how such a sweet girl had turned into such an evil teenager. Karin herself was already sharing the premises of a bond with a guy from her football team, and she was relentless enough about it to make him wonder how far a military trained Sentinel would go.
But what were the chances, right?
.
It took Nel almost a month to find Ichigo. The hospital’s strict policies about Guides had been hard to bend, even with the threat of a rabid Sentinel in their walls - and neither Nel or himself could reach out to him directly, as it would have been both illegal and highly disrespectful. Their world had established clear boundaries between unbonded Sentinels and Guides, and a rather huge and comprehensive set of rules that his fearless captain wasn’t about to break.
‘Relax,’ she told him, eating pastries and drinking all the tea they’d been offered while waiting. ‘Just talk it out, and whatever happens, happens.’
In the end, they had managed to arrange a meeting thanks to a common acquaintance : Inoue Orihime was apparently bonded to the son of the hospital’s director, and had relayed their message to Ichigo. Who had agreed to meet.
Who was now entering the room.
‘Here we go,’ Nel said, getting up and brushing the crumbs off her suit. She turned to Grimmjow, keeping her whispering low enough for only both of their enhanced ears. ‘I trust you not to fuck this up. And please don’t bond on the carpet.’
She closed the door rather loudly on her way out, leaving them alone.
‘Right,’ Ichigo muttered, taking a tentative step forward.
He still smelled of the summer rains, of sunshine and faintly of sweet almond soap; Grimmjow could still see the yellow of his eyes, back in that impossibly vertical inner world of his; now brown, they went to his face and then to his left arm, now fully healed.
‘You seem in better shape,’ he said after a few second, a bit sheepish.
‘Sentinel healing,’ Grimmjow answered mockingly, his gaze heavy on Ichigo, who took off his coat and put it on the back of a chair. ‘Would have been better with you around,’ he added with a toothy smile.
‘I already told you, I’m not -’
‘Yeah, and I’m telling you I don’t give a shit. It’s you,’ he told him, the words sounding strangely like a confession in his mouth, ‘and no one else.’
Ichigo looked away, unsure and uneasy, but still sat next to him on the couch.
‘I’m willing to try,’ he admitted, his voice slightly wavering, anger and fear merging into something close to hysteria. ‘But don’t push it.’
‘I won’t,’ Grimmjow heard himself promise sincerely, the same fear cursing through his veins like poison.
Just like last time, Ichigo extended his hands towards him, finally meeting his eyes. Only reaching out to touch his open palm, his cold fingers and silky skin - it felt like an understatement, almost a lie. Something pushed against his mind, and Grimmjow could feel his grip grow stronger on Ichigo’s hands as he was pulled deeper inside.
.
The sight of Ichigo on the black ink of his sky is a breathtaking and terrifying one - his eyes shine all the more yellow, and his skin looks almost white under the hollow dominion of the crescent moon. He looks perfect, picturesque and mythical; and it’s as if he knows it, too.
He just can’t begin to guess what effect it has on Grimmjow.
‘Nice place,’ Ichigo comments, an insolent smile spreading on his face. He takes a step in the sand, then another; he slides down a dune as if he’s done it a hundred times already, catlike and predatory, perfect in every way.
Ichigo comes to a fateful stop in front of him, and looks up. ‘Alright,’ he says, enigmatic and divine. ‘Your place or mine?’
Above them, the ink black sky is slowly fracturing, ready to shatter, and a small sliver of blue smiles at them.
.
‘I said don’t bond on the carpet , but what did you do -’
‘I didn’t ,’ Grimmjow hissed at her, again . He’d kept on insisting as Nel drove them to the seaside resort just outside of Karakura, one of those dream-like places that guaranteed a nice, fulfilling bonding moment between a Sentinel and Guide pair.
The hospital room would have been enough, but Nel had stormed in along with the hospital representative. It didn’t even have a carpet, for fuck’s sake.
‘You were this close,’ she corrected herself, stammering, rushing recklessly through the muddy countryside roads.
‘I fucking told you, it was already -’
‘- happening, yeah,’ Nel growled, her eyes never leaving the road.
The fracturing skyline was a tell-tale sign that had triggered everything else. Ichigo had not really been hard to convince afterwards - it had awoken something inside of him, too, and he’d had a hard time letting go when it was time to say goodbye. His gaze had lingered, that eerie shade of yellow shining through the brown, heavy with both longing and impatience.
In the backseat, Nnoitra was doing his nails, unfazed by the whole situation. And probably keeping Nel from crashing into a tree, tunneling her frustration into her driving and quieting the rushing sensations from her other senses - they had been bonded for years, now, and the uncanny ability they had to understand each other without actually speaking was creepy as hell.
She came to an abrupt stop in front of the guest house, not five minutes later; Ichigo was sitting on the wooden stairs leading to the door, a steaming cup of what smelled like coffee in his hands. Neliel was out of the car before him, opening the trunk as he stepped out - and unceremoniously dumped his bag in his hands.
‘Have fun.’
She kissed his cheek and left just as fast as she’d arrived.
‘Am I going to actually meet her, one day, or is it going to be like this every time?’
‘She’ll love you more than your own parents, if you give her enough time,’ he answered, throwing Ichigo a look over his shoulder.
He laughed at that, descending the stairs step by step, his cup forgotten on the railing.
‘You coming?’
‘Yeah,’ he said, picking up his bag and reaching out to playfully tug on Ichigo’s long hair.
That earned him a pointed look. ‘I hate your ass so much,’ Ichigo whispered after a long second, quickly climbing the last steps to the door and picking up his cup.
‘You don’t mean that,’ Grimmjow retorted in the same low tone, chuckling, ‘you haven’t seen it yet!’
He followed him inside, dropping his bag under the coat railings and shrugging out of his coat and shoes. Ichigo watched him walk around, scenting the air and checking the windows, the doors; it was spacious, but not too much - not enough to make Grimmjow antsy. The various smells that usually coated floors and walls and furniture had been carefully washed off, and all he could hear for miles was the rustling of leaves, the water of the lake behind the house, animals walking on pine needles and all kind of forest sounds that had him sigh in relief.
Ichigo was silently watching him go through the motions, sipping his coffee in the small kitchen - the living room looked comfy, the fridge was full, there was even twin bedrooms in case their bond was to be platonic.
Grimmjow highly doubted that would be the case.
‘So,’ Ichigo started, putting his now empty cup in the sink.
‘So?’ Grimmjow prompted, still looking through one of the large windows in the living room, his eyes unseeing; absorbed in the fairy lights of the horizon, in the declining sun glowing gold on the lake and the shimmering wings of dragonflies flying above it, it was easier to focus on speaking.
He heard his own steady breathing, in and out, in and out, and the old leather of the couch cracking as Ichigo sat; and then he couldn’t see that far anymore or hear the owls slowly come awake or the fish swimming in the lake - his senses dulled until everything outside the house became white noise, indiscernible and muted, as if he was trapped inside glass.
‘Stop that,’ he hissed at Ichigo, blinking stupidly at the windows for a few seconds.
‘Then stop hyper focusing. It’s annoying,’ Ichigo complained, patting the empty space next to him.
Grimmjow looked at him, at his hand, and risked a glance at his face - all of this was new and all the more sharper for it, foreign scents mingling with familiar ones, Ichigo’s presence all around making him antsy and anxious and all sort of things at once -
‘Here,’ Ichigo says, sounding a bit annoyed, ‘lie down and just - just stop thinking. It’s fine, I’m not leaving, and we are doing this. You good?’
It was easy to listen to him, to quiet his mind and put his head on Ichigo’s lap, comfortably cushioned against numerous plush pillows that didn’t, for once, itched or burned the skin of his face. Cool fingertips brushed against his forehead, and Grimmjow sighed in contentment, his eyes closed and feeling very close to purring.
‘’m good,’ he mumbled, breathing in the sweet rain scent of Ichigo. He coudl almost taste it on his tongue, the bond; it was just like the books and Nel and everyone said, it was as if a string linked both their minds and bodies together.
Whatever Ichigo was doing, it was slowly lulling him to sleep - not that Grimmjow minded.
.
The smell of freshly cooked food filled his nostrils and Grimmjow was salivating before he was even fully awake. The old leather of the couch was keeping him warm, along with a soft patterned blanket - Ichigo’s smell was all around him, but without him near everything seemed somehow colder.
‘I’m here,’ his amused voice informed him, as if he could read his mind.
Which was kind of true, considering he was a Guide.
‘You are projecting. It’s kind of funny,’ Ichigo added, apparently in the process of re-heating katsudon. Sitting on the couch, still draped in the blanket, Grimmjow eyes him carefully.
There actually was a comprehensive guide to bonding. He had been handed one, when he had started his Sentinel training - it was mostly theoric, as bonding went differently for every pair, but it was made of simple steps to encourage intimacy, or whatever was deemed necessary to form a strong bond.
Cooking for your partner was one of those.
‘And you are making dinner,’ Grimmjow remarked with a raised eyebrow, unwilling to get up.
Ichigo’s unfazed gaze met his from across the room, and he seemed to debate whether or not to answer for a second. ‘You were sleeping and I was hungry,’ he elected to say as the soft ding of the microwave ringed heavily in Grimmjow’s ears.
‘I’m not complaining.’
‘Yeah, you better not,’ Ichigo muttered, trying not to burn his fingers on the green ceramic bowls.
The other steps were just as simple, if not blatantly obvious - sharing what was artfully called moments, which really meant sharing spaces, meals and memories and all kind of things people usually did when they were together. That was also the reason why doing this completely isolated from the world in a small countryside house usually worked so well.
Grimmjow turned on the TV, letting its hollow noise flood the room.
You couldn’t rush the whole process of bonding, that was just not possible - not just because it took time, but mostly because keeping it alive and well demanded a careful nurturing, as it needed to be fed those infamous moments Grimmjow had read and heard so much about. Throwing the blanket aside, he got up - rescuing Ichigo from himself seemed like a good idea at the moment.
‘Move,’ he ordered, pushing against his shoulder with his own, effortlessly handling the very hot ceramic and putting it on the tray Ichigo had already prepared. It was piled up with second servings of rice and pork as well as snacks, two water bottles and what looked like a can of soda, and it was frankly a miracle that nothing fell during the short trip to the coffee table.
They let the TV sputter its usual nonsense as they ate, Ichigo utterly unconcerned by the sheer amount of rice and katsudon Grimmjow was wolfing down.
‘My dad and my sister are Sentinels,’ Ichigo explained as if he’d heard him. ‘Your boss -’
‘Nel,’ Grimmjow supplied between two bites.
‘Nel, she’s a Sentinel as well,’ he easily guessed. ‘Her guide was in the car, I could feel him.’
‘Yeah, it’s been a while. Almost everyone is bonded in the unit, now,’ Grimmjow found himself telling him a bit too cheerfully, earning a questioning look from Ichigo. ‘We have a pool bet, you know? Nel lost good money when I found you,’ he snickered, remembering her puffy face when she had handed Harribel the money, putting a fat wad of bills in her waiting open palm.
‘Like it wasn’t me who found you , eh,’ Ichigo jokingly answered, fighting to open a little aluminum packet that contained pockys.
‘I was dying ,’ Grimmjow reminded him, snatching it from his fingers and ripping it open.
‘Come on,’ Ichigo said, snatching it right back and popping one in his mouth. ‘It was only a few broken ribs, blood loss, almost a concussion and a bad cut on your arm.’
‘Healed in less than a month,’ Grimmjow said, shrugging it off. ‘Thanks to you.’
He bumped his shoulder into him, conveying it even more.
‘It’s my job,’ Ichigo deadpanned, looking a bit red as he smiled happily. ‘And it was so easy, I mean, I just had to push the cells a little and they answered right away - can you stop feeling so damn proud, you’re projecting all the way to Tokyo!’ He snapped at him, their legs touching and sending a wave of liquid fire up his spine.
Grimmjow fished a pocky out of Ichigo’s packet, and munched on it. ‘Shut up,’ he finally answered, the scent of fresh rain overpowering everything else, even the sweet chocolate taste filling his mouth. Ichigo chuckled, and for a second Grimmjow could feel his gaze on him, heavy with a want and a longing mirroring his own - then it was gone in an instant, as if it had never been there.
‘How did you survive that long out there?’
‘Without you, you mean?’ Ichigo teased him with an inviting smile. ‘I managed. Karin - my sister - she helped a lot. She still does,’ he added, and there was a lot of things unsaid there. ‘Ishida, too. But I’m mostly used to it,’ he concluded like it meant nothing. ‘You?’
‘I didn’t grow up with sisters or shit like that,’ he decided to say. ‘I was taken to the special wards, once or twice, when it became too much. Then, I ended up military and they have regulars. That was it,’ Grimmjow quickly summed up, his azure gaze finding the Guide’s.
The faraway look in those eyes told him there was more than what Ichigo had shared with him, but he didn’t push it - that time would come, later, and if it didn’t come fast enough, then he’d definitely insist. But not now.
Grimmjow suddenly looked up, to the soft padding of the first raindrops against the tiled roof. The forest would be drenched come morning - ‘You still with me, Grimmjow?’
‘Yeah,’ he breathed, blinking slowly at the ceiling. ‘It’s gonna rain,’ he heard himself adding, anchoring what he heard to reality - it was easier to distanciate himself from it, if he put words on things.
He heard the rustling of clothes, telling him Ichigo had turned towards the windows. He wouldn’t see anything until it started raining in earnest; the heavier droplets were still suspended in-between, neither in the clouds nor in the earth.
‘Theoretically, we could live without each other,’ Ichigo started, mulling over old things Grimmjow had long been wondering about, too. ‘Maybe we just don’t know how. Maybe -’
‘Maybe it’s easier not to,’ he cut, dropping his gaze to his food.
‘I guess, yeah... We wouldn’t be here, if we could survive without the bond,’ Ichigo went on, sinking into the plush cushions of the couch, a pocky hanging in his mouth like an unlit cigarette. He exhaled then, slow and careful, as if it could somehow ease the wild ricochet of his heart.
‘Having second thoughts, Kurosaki?’ Grimmjow teased him half-heartedly, repressing the unwanted memories of the long, aching weeks he’d spent healing on his own at the compound after meeting Ichigo.
Ichigo did not answer at first, and then almost laughed. ‘I’ve not filled all that paperwork to chicken out now.’
Nel had been thorough, of course - none of the documents Ichigo had signed would endanger his status, his freedom, not like some contracts still did. As if the bond between Sentinel and Guide needed to be policed by strangers... On the contrary, he’d be even more protected now that they had agreed on the bond, and whatever came with it. Like the living arrangements that had to be made, or the military training Ichigo would have to undergo for his own protection. Afterwards, Nel had told Grimmjow, her lovat green eyes glinting with something like amusement and pride, that he had picked his mate well.
‘I’m here to stay,’ Ichigo assured him, a bit uneasy, a bit unsure of the words coming out of his mouth. He was fidgeting with a long orange bang that had come out of the same ornate clasp as before, not willing to meet Grimmjow’s blue eyes.
Something inside him ignited at those words, something hard and invincible; their world had been constructed with a very strict set of rules that had never seemed more irrelevant, more absurd than now.
Then, it started raining.
.
‘Move over,’ Grimmjow said, dropping the heavy pile of cushions he’d brought from the couch on Ichigo, who happened to be sitting on that side of the bed. Grimmjow’s side.
‘Wait-’
The soft, patterned blanket from earlier was draped over his shoulder. He promptly threw it on Ichigo’s face, and pushed him to the other side of the bed; then, he started rearranging the pillows until he was satisfied enough - it wasn’t like his bed at home, but it would have to be until they got back.
The vivid image of Ichigo lying lazily in his bed with half-lidded eyes of gold and his long hair thrown haphazardly around his head like a divine halo - it was enough to make him pause.
Ichigo finally entangled himself from the bedsheets and blankets, and threw him an aggravated look from under his orange bangs. ‘You could have asked!’
‘Shut up,’ Grimmjow growled back, snatching the blanket from Ichigo’s hands.
‘You shut up -’
One of the pillows went flying to his head, but Grimmjow caught it easily. He had been trained to evade far more dangerous projectiles, and though he knew Ichigo’s throw was weak and not meant to hurt, it still sent his mind and senses running wild.
‘Shit, Grimmjow, sorry, I -’ Ichigo quietly went cold when he saw the predatory glint in his eyes.
‘Gimme a sec,’ Grimmjow told him, his eyes resolutely trained downward until he’d regain control.
Heightened senses had kept him alive and kicking since his first steps, and he knew nothing in Ichigo’s action was challenging him or putting him in danger, but some instincts died hard; a Guide was a rare commodity in his line of work, but one that had quickly became mandatory when situations like this one arose. Rogue military Sentinels were not unheard of, neither was going sense-mad.
‘How long?’ Ichigo softly inquired, his cool palm finding his forehead, quieting the mad tremors in his hands and veiling his eyes.
‘Too fucking long,’ he heard himself sigh heavily, his breathing ragged.
Instead of the gunpowder and blood fragrances filling his nose, Grimmjow slowly followed the loose trail of the rain, elusive even when he could breathe in its earthy scent, when he could hear the droplets run on the glass windows outside. After a few deep breaths, Grimmjow finally felt like himself again as he regained a hold of his senses and surroundings. One of his hands was fisted in Ichigo’s pajama top; the little stars printed here and there on the neutral beige fabric looked childish, and he fingered idly six of them linked by a faded white line.
‘You were being decommissioned, weren’t you?’
Ichigo’s hand had left his face, and pushed lightly against his shoulder - Grimmjow sunk against his nest of pillows and cushions, the patterned blanket folded against him.
‘Yeah,’ he answered, his blue eyes open but unseeing; he didn’t feel like sleeping, not yet, not when they had so much to say to each other. ‘In a few months. Probably less. Guess they don’t like their toys broken,’ Grimmjow muttered, a hollow laugh shaking his shoulders.
Ichigo’s smile did not reach his eyes. He turned off the lights, but even in the near darkness Grimmjow could still see enough of him - he watched intently as Ichigo undid the clasp in his hair and settled it on the bedside table, wondering if he could just reach out and touch it.
‘You’re not broken, you silly sentinel,’ Ichigo whispered sincerely to him as he laid on his side.
‘Shut up,’ Grimmjow mumbled, bringing the blanket fabric closer to his nose.
Fingers reached his hair, his jaw and softly brushed against his skin; Ichigo had not asked about the scar on his cheek yet, but it didn’t really matter.
‘I’m glad it’s you,’ he said instead, the touch of his lips caressing Grimmjow’s forehead.
.
Ichigo was not used to waking up with the sun, and thus had promptly buried his face inside his pillow when its first rays had touched his face and burnt his eyes. The low chuckle at his right had told him this was deeply amusing to Grimmjow, who sounded perfectly fine with waking up that early.
‘You’re a monster,’ Ichigo mumbled against the soft fabric, unwilling to get up just yet.
Grimmjow’s people had booked the cottage for a month, and the owners were specialized in that kind of business - they could extend it for another few weeks, all expenses covered, if needed.
His dad probably wouldn’t like it.
The demonic spirit that inhabited Karin’s skin would tell him to make the most of it, and Ichigo was inclined to do just that - starting with lazy mornings in bed and late nights spent talking and nurturing the bond until it snapped into place.
‘Hungry?’
‘It’s too early for that,’ Ichigo moaned, turning his head to finally face Grimmjow - sharing the same bed had been easier than he’d thought, but it was still a bit awkward to wake up bundled in bedsheets and pillows next to his Sentinel. It still felt like a dream, even though Ichigo could feel the string linking them grow taut every now and then.
‘It’s only nine,’ Grimmjow stated, a bit bored.
‘... And you have been awake since -’
‘For an hour or two,’ came the easy answer.
Grimmjow was shuffling through the pages of an old book, its pages yellow and well worned by time; he was dressed already, looking fresh an alert, sunk amidst his own nest of pillows like a lazy cat. His vivid blue eyes met his, leaving the inked words of the book in an instant.
‘Hey,’ Ichigo said, a bit embarrassed. He’d had boyfriends and girlfriends alike those past few years, so he was no stranger to waking up next to someone else, to sharing food and bed and comforting gestures - even though, somehow, the bond managed to make it somewhat awkward. What meager advice the Book of Bonding offered was so old, so beside the point that Ichigo had not bothered reading more than twenty, thirty pages - the Sentinel next to him was nowhere to be found inside those aging pages anyway, and neither was he. There were no clear boundaries for what they were to each other, other than what they wished and what their gifts gave them.
And even that had become hard to define.
‘Are you, uh, hungry?’ Ichigo tried, all awkwardness and absolutely mortified.
‘Nah, it’s too early,’ Grimmjow answered, a teasing smile playing on his lips as he repeated Ichigo’s earlier words to him. ‘Sleep if you wanna,’ he added, turning his attention back to the book in his hands. ‘I’ll read.’
The voice of his father ricocheted inside Ichigo’s skull, as if it was suddenly void of any thoughts but for what Isshin had said to his son on the day he’d departed - you are making a mistake, he had said, his stern black eyes narrowed on his suitcase.
Then it is my mistake to make, Ichigo had answered coldly.
‘Do you mind if I,’ he started saying, gesturing at the space between him and the Sentinel as if it explained everything. Grimmjow only cocked an eyebrow at him, perfectly aware of what he meant but not about to help him out. ‘IfIcomecloser,’ Ichigo finally blurted out, long strand of hair falling in front of his eyes and resolutely avoiding Grimmjow’s piercing blue stare.
‘Come here,’ the Sentinel said, lifting his elbow, looking quite pleased with himself and feeling very pleased indeed now that Ichigo took a deeper look at what feelings he was projecting.
Bastard , Ichigo thought, fumbling with the bedsheets to get closer. He curled against his side, feeling pleasantly warm and safe; Grimmjow settled his arm around his shoulders, his cheek against the crown of his head, and nuzzled gently at his hair. The bond was not strong enough to shelter Ichigo’s mind properly, at least not without a physical tether - images of the nearby forest and lake had plagued his dreams, as well as whatever lingered in the house.
He closed his eyes, sighing in contentment when nothing more than himself echoed in the quietness of the room.
.
When he woke up again later that morning, Ichigo felt well-rested and more than a little hungry; he was still in Grimmjow’s arms, and the Sentinel was still reading whatever book he had dug up. The voices in his mind were still quiet when he disentangled himself from Grimmjow, who tugged playfully at his hair.
‘Feelin’ better?’
Pushing a few orange strands away from his eyes, Ichigo nodded absently. ‘I’m good,’ he answered earnestly, stifling a yawn.
He had not slept this well in a while, and was suddenly glad his nerdy (and sightly bullshit) speech about Sentinel’s instincts had led them to share a bed. It wasn’t entirely untrue, though, that Grimmjow would have woken up looking for him and all the more riled up if they had not slept in the same room - the bed sharing had not even been brought up, they had just done it. As if it was that obvious, that simple.
‘Yes, sorry about that - and thanks,’ Ichigo babbled nervously, sitting amidst the bedsheets and pillows. The patterned blanket he had put under Grimmjow’s nose late last night was wrapped tightly around them, both of their scents probably on it. It would act as a transfer object until the bond was stronger - his sister and Inoue had told him a few things that were not in the Book, and Ichigo was really thankful for that handful of real advice. He got up, quickly followed by his Sentinel.
‘Can we eat, now,’ Grimmjow half-snarled at him, sending his book flying across the room in an angry gesture as he too got up.
He pushed him towards the kitchen, crowding his space until Ichigo was finally sitting at the table in front of an empty mug; he numbly rubbed at his eyes, sleep still clinging to his bones.
‘Sorry,’ he muttered again as Grimmjow filled it with what smelled like hot chocolate.
A heavily furnished breakfast table was set in the blink of an eye, and soon it smelled like coffee, toasts and eggs. Ichigo put a spoonful of honey in his mug, to sweeten the drink a little more - and felt something warm settle on his shoulders.
He angled his head back, at Grimmjow who was standing behind his chair, his palms splayed on his back, at his neck, on his clavicles - with it everything was at once deeply, mercifully silent.
‘Ichigo,’ the Sentinel finally exhaled in a heavy breath, his nails scraping lightly at his exposed skin.
He felt a shiver run up his spine, suddenly wide awake. ‘It gets silent for you, too,’ Ichigo guessed in a shaky voice, his toes curling when Grimmjow’s hands moved to comb through his long hair. The Sentinel made a humming noise, as if agreeing, and started working on the knots and tangles as Karin usually did on Sunday mornings, though a lot more gently than his sister.
Then, he felt it - the shadow of Grimmjow’s heartbeat slowly synchronising with his own, his senses as quiet as the unmoving lake outside, but his feelings swirling wildly inside.
‘Don’t move,’ Grimmjow groaned, tugging slightly on his hair as Ichigo brought his cup to his lips, trying to drink a little before it got too cold.
‘You know it hurts when you do that, right,’ he muttered as Grimmjow did his hair.
‘I do,’ came the playful answer at his ear. The cold after those hands left him made him curl his fingers around his warm mug, unsure of what to do.
Ichigo watched as Grimmjow sat near him, looking a bit lost - like he couldn’t decide what he should eat first.
‘Hesitating?’ He couldn’t help but tease him.
Vibrant blue eyes looked up at him. ‘Shut up,’ he said, going for the toasts and butter.
Outside, the skies were greyish and some of the clouds looked bloated with rain and even dark enough to make him wonder about thunder and lightning; Ichigo could feel the sluggish way the forest was answering to it as his mind came awake, and could almost feel all sorts of insects crawling up his calves. He shook his leg, willing the sensation away but knowing full well it wouldn’t work.
‘What are we doing today?’ He asked, trying to take his mind off it, trying not to notice the way the dust settled in the air - as if it would take shape.
Sometimes, Ichigo could see the previous pair that had bonded here, their imprint on the house still heavy. He wondered if they, too, would leave a mark strong enough for the air to remember them.
‘What are you seeing?’ Grimmjow answered instead, having noticed way his eyes went here and there.
‘I don’t really know. Nobody could answer that question, at school,’ Ichigo confessed, his suddenly amber eyes following a human-like form only him could see. ‘So I stopped asking. They are like automatons, or ghosts, repeating the same motions over and over until they decide to move on. There was one, near home. I used to put flowers for her at the corner of the street, when I was a kid. I think she liked it.’
He smiled at the memory, wondering where the ghost of the kitchen disappeared to when he wasn’t having breakfast or dinner with them.
‘Sometimes,’ Grimmjow started in a too quiet voice that told Ichigo nobody else knew about what he was going to say, ‘I can push at things. Not hard. Not anything big,’ he chuckled then, his eyes going to the spoon Ichigo had left in the honey jar. The metal seemed to vibrate for a second, before the spoon gently came out of the jar and started dripping honey on the table.
Ichigo met his eyes, their color a raging neon blue.
‘You are not the only freak in the room, Kurosaki,’ Grimmjow finished, letting the spoon clatter loudly on the table.
Ichigo snorted at that. ‘We make quite the pair, then,’ he remarked with an insolent smile, still trying to shake the feeling of ants crawling on his skin.
Then, he felt it - the rush of the wild water in his inner world, and saw himself ankle-deep in it as the skyscrapers all around suddenly had a hard time staying upright. Ichigo watched one sink slowly, knowing perfectly where it was going. The bond was shaking awake, and one eye inside told him too much and not enough - Grimmjow did not seem affected at all, which meant they would settle in his white sand desert of perpetual night, when this was all over.
White sand, and skyscrapers. Ichigo doubted they’d stay in that form on the other side - what would they be reshaped into, after the bond?
What will you make of me, in your world of monsters and nightmares? Ichigo thought as he watched Grimmjow munch on a piece of brown bread, the crawling ants at his feet replaced by cascading water that slowly filled the kitchen floor as well as his inner world, what do I become?
(You unbecome)
‘I have something to show you’, Ichigo said, extending his hand towards Grimmjow. The water was gone when their skin touched, his cold skin welcoming the warm embrace of his Sentinel.
‘Show me,’ Grimmjow answered, cocking his head to the side.
An half eaten toast laid buttered and abandoned in his plate, mirroring Ichigo’s abandoned cup; the kitchen seemed as good a place as any to do this, but Grimmjow hastily removed his hand from his, throwing him an unsure look.
‘Having second thoughts, Jaegerjaques?’ Ichigo teased him, the water rushing back both inside and outside of him, like a leaky pipe, like the incoming tide, like rain that just started falling in earnest outside; his vision was slightly blurred at the edges, and his entire skin felt impossibly raw and exposed.
‘Not here,’ the Sentinel exhaled, all tousled hair and youthful awkwardness.
Ichigo stood, the water already up to his calves. He slowly walked out of the kitchen, trying to focus on his breathing.
Ichigo sat heavily on his side of the bed, then laid down, remembering the hollow words of that wretched Book of Bonding - what he was experiencing was entirely normal, he was just going under to witness the changes.
His inner world was reversing back to its unshaped, embryonic state.
Ichigo held a hand out to Grimmjow who brushed his thumb against his pulse, before lying down on his side to face him.
‘How long?’
‘Not long,’ Ichigo answered. ‘You will know,’ he added with an apologetic smile.
They shifted uncomfortably in the bed, having decided not to bury themselves in the sheets and blankets - it was a bit soon for the bond to form fully, but neither of them commented on it. The early morning light passed through the blinds, casting shapeless shadows across his face, but never dimming the blue fire of his eyes as Grimmjow looked up to him - he looked like a cat, lazily annoyed, beautiful, and yet not leaving.
Then, he starting hearing it too - the soft patter of the rain, and the shattering of this ink black sky Grimmjow bore inside him. He inhaled through his nose, his fingertips tracing the edges of Ichigo’s ribs through the thin fabric of his shirt.
They met halfway, so slowly it was almost a dream - Ichigo could feel Grimmjow’s hot breath against his lips as the rainsong went on and on, as the outside world disappeared like it was watered-down by the rain.
They open their eyes to a desert of white sand.
‘Look,’ Ichigo tells him, pointing up like a kid would point at the stars, at the sun; there’s only a crescent moon here, smiling down at them as it is dismantled and broken by whatever is trying to cross the thin barrier of their joined worlds. ‘Look,’ Ichigo repeats, awed as if he is watching the fireworks at Tanabata.
A skyscraper comes down, and along with it a sky so blue it almost hurts. And then another crosses the thin barrier that separates them, and soon wouldn't even exist anymore; there's water rushing along with it, and it turns the sand to a glistening, luminous sea as it finally collapses into it. The blue bleeds out of the skycrappers, who turn white and old - and impossibly imposing. It's not only a city, but an entire palace which name is an elusive whisper on his lips and in his mind -
In the end, nothing remains but the soft song of the rain coming through, the distant sun making every single droplet gleam like a tiny star against the dark night of this world of sands and monsters.
‘Look at us’, Ichigo says again, his hushed whisper resonating all around them.
They are kissing when the outside world reappears, and it’s as if they are still dreaming - everything looks sharper, alive, and all the sounds and smells are rushing back to him. Ichigo feels Grimmjow's tongue on his neck, feels him tugging at his shirt, lost in that perfect dream.