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Ichigo walks with his flashlight beaming ahead of him, picking as carefully as he can over the ruined pavement. There are more weeds than concrete and they grow high from the cracks, vibrantly green in the oval of bright light with long, spiky shadows cast ahead. There are little white flowers on hardy stalks. Ichigo doesn't know what they are, but he tries not to kick them over.
Around his other hand, Grimmjow's fingers squeeze a little too tight. Then he trips again over the uneven ground, catches himself blindly with his other hand on Ichigo's shoulder, and huffs, "Kurosaki."
"Yeah, you're right," Ichigo laughs. He looks back at him in the dark. "I've had better ideas. You can take that off now. We're here."
Grimmjow, who wore the blindfold for approximately thirty seconds before complaining and never once reached up for it, rips the thing off his head and stuffs it into his pocket. With the flashlight pointed towards their feet, Ichigo can see him scrub at his eyes, then look around, squinting, at where Ichigo's led him.
It used to be a parking lot. Ichigo doesn't know what for, because there's nothing around but grass and the street and an abandoned, overgrown foundation. Maybe an apartment complex or a business or something– It doesn't matter. Ichigo's never had to scale the chainlink because it's been down for as long as he can remember. There are no street lights out here at the dead-end of development, but the city glows against the night in the east, bleeding all the stars away.
Grimmjow's still got his hand, looser now. "Charming," he says, with a rumble to it that usually means he's being earnest, "Is this where I die? You take me out to the middle of nowhere and finally decide to go psycho-killer on me? I hope you chop me up. That'd be cool."
"What the fuck, I'm not gonna chop you up." Ichigo points the flashlight ahead and starts pulling him along again. "And if I was gonna kill you at all, I would have done it already."
"Really? When?"
Balls deep with your back to me. He's not saying that. "Whenever. You drive me fucking crazy, man. Come on."
"Whenever," Grimmjow barks back at him. He's loud and it's so flat out here that his laugh seems bigger than it is. He stays a beat behind Ichigo. Stepping where he steps, probably, now that he can see more than nothing. "How'd you know this was out here?"
"Chad found it when we were kids. We used to bike over and play basketball, before the weeds broke the pavement up so bad."
"What'd you use for a hoop?"
"Two of those big open trash bins. We had three-point lines to make it harder. The bins were already here, but we'd hide them in the grass when we left and then drag them back out. Down at, uh... that end." He points to the left with the flashlight, and in the two steps of darkness it's Ichigo's turn to trip. Grimmjow snags him by the back of his belt before he can bust his face on the crumbled concrete.
Grimmjow staggers a little with Ichigo's weight, ends up far too close to his ear, smiling, and says, "Sounds fun."
Ichigo only squeezes his hand. He gets his feet right and keeps walking. It's been a damn hot summer, nights too, and he's already sticky-warm and sweating. "Thanks. It was fun."
"Is that my present?"
"No."
"Are you my present?"
Ichigo snorts and shakes his head. "No. Maybe later."
"Out here?"
"Maybe later. Come on."
Grimmjow hums and leaves it. Just for now, probably. Ichigo doesn't mind. He'll mind even less in an hour or so, when they get back to the car — after they've both worked up more of a sweat and Grimmjow's worn himself out. When they can fold over each other in the backseat, leave a door open to make themselves fit. Turn on the air-con and fog the windows anyways. And then, afterwards, Ichigo can write happy birthday, asshole in the fading condensation while Grimmjow tries to doodle his own imagined murder and mutilation in hideous stick-figure pictograms.
It'll be worth the heat. Shit, it'd be worth breaking his face on the pavement, too.
Ichigo walks them to the far end of the lot. He keeps his flashlight angled down. When he stops, Grimmjow bumps against him with a grunt. Not so intentional this time.
"Stay here and close your eyes," Ichigo says. Not necessary, really. This part's just for fun.
"Are you serious?"
"Yep."
The sigh Grimmjow gives him is incredible, loud and gusty. He can hear the eye roll that goes with it. But then Grimmjow shakes his hand free of Ichigo's grip and uses both to cover his eyes. Blind again in the dark, just because Ichigo asked. "Hurry the fuck up."
Ichigo grins and hurries the fuck up. He walks the last bit to Grimmjow's present, searches the tall grass with his flashlight. Finds what he's looking for and picks it up. He hides it against his body, even though Grimmjow can't see, and bounces back.
Side by side, he lets the flashlight shine forward and bumps their shoulders together. "Okay. Open."
Grimmjow's hands drop. The cricket-chirp quiet stretches into a long, breathable moment. Ichigo wishes he could see more than the way Grimmjow's head falls into a deep, curious tilt.
"Wow," Grimmjow drawls eventually, "You got me garbage."
In the beam ahead of them, glass glitters and plastic shines. Less a pile and more a procession– Of garbage, sure. Carefully collected garbage. Two crates of glass bottles — beer and soda and those fancy chocolate-something drinks that Rukia likes. The big TV that sparked and died a couple months ago and the VCR that Karin spilled coffee on. The brick of a laptop that Renji dropped in the driveway. On and on, anything that'd shatter or crunch. More bottles lined up on top of anything flat. Dreamland junkyard in this halo of light like a fucked up art piece.
Ichigo's very proud of it.
"I got you recycling," Ichigo says. He lifts his other hand into the light, his fist around the handle of a wooden baseball bat hanging down. "Mostly, I got you this."
This, and a place to use it.
Next to him, Grimmjow's head tilts the other way. His hand comes up and he touches Ichigo's knuckles around the grip, doesn't take it yet. He's tanned real nice, but he still seems pale in the yellow-white beam.
"We gonna take turns?" he asks. Quieter.
"Nah. It's all yours."
Grimmjow breathes hard, all at once, pressure release like a pop tab. "Will you hold the light?"
"Wherever you want."
Grimmjow takes the bat. When he crosses forward into the light, all Ichigo can see is the wicked white gleam of his teeth. His eyes.
In the dark behind the beam, Ichigo bares his teeth back. "Have fun, psycho-killer."
The first smashed shriek of glass tears the night wide open.