(no subject)
Title: Marigold
Pairing: Grimmjow/Izuru
Warnings: AU timeline based shortly after the current manga storyline- spoilers for everything that has happened and some things that haven't!
Rating: Currently PG-13(ish)
Half-credit to yashy
Soul Society was a hotbed of activity. Aizen was missing again, many of their higher-ranked shinigami were hospitalized with critical injuries, all security details had been doubled- it was easy to see how several captive Espada could have gone unnoticed. The only ones who had the privilege of knowing they were there were the ones who had captured them and a few of the captains. They had been expressly forbidden to discuss the situation with anyone but Head Captain Yamamoto and Captain Kurotsuchi, which meant Izuru hadn’t spoken a word to anyone. He hadn’t even seen Grimmjow Jaegerjacques since he had turned him over to the Twelfth Company.
It sat badly with him. It was easy enough to tell himself that a captive was no use unless they were healthy and treated humanely, and that Head Captain Yamamoto wouldn’t allow someone who came along willingly to be treated like a dangerous animal, but even his own words weren’t convincing him. Izuru was as versed in Soul Society’s history as anyone else, and he couldn’t help but worry that this would become another one of those spots that was swept under the rug.
He had busied himself with paperwork. It was his usual way of distracting himself- after all, with no captain, there was certainly enough of it piling up. But as the days passing turned into a week, then were approaching a second, it was just too much to push out of his mind.
He was starting to take circuitous routes to drop off his paperwork. He stopped in buildings he hadn’t been in for years- sometimes decades- poking his head in rooms, saying hello to people whose names he couldn’t remember. He had gotten a few puzzled looks, but that had been the extent of it.
Izuru knew he was treading into dangerous waters. He had been expressly instructed to not mention the arrancar to anyone, much less look for him. There had no consequences mentioned, but he could make some guesses.
He had been imprisoned once, and that had only been for one night. That had been bad enough. He couldn’t imagine going back.
Even if he did still belong there.
Misgivings aside, Izuru had waited until night had fallen to do his filing. He felt a lot less conspicuous than when he wandered around during the day. It didn’t hurt that most people had already finished their work day by then, leaving him in relative peace to do his work. He had actually started doing that long before- there were only so many pitying looks one man could handle.
The first place he had looked had been the abandoned buildings near the Twelfth Company’s squad house. That had been the obvious choice- luckily, the buildings were still empty. The place made him nervous. But in the days following, he’d had no more luck with any of the rest of the Seireitei.
Tonight, he had nowhere left to look.
He had been walking for a long time. He’d skirted the edge of Rukongai, paced around the Academy, then gone by all of the squad houses again. But his mind was nowhere near the buildings he could see around him, or the few people he passed. This night, like more nights than he could count, he was inside that cell, clutching his arms to his chest and trying to understand how he had raised his blade to someone he considered a friend.
That had seemed like the ultimate betrayal to him, and yet what followed was so much worse. Captain Ichimaru had coaxed him out of the cell against direct orders. He had- willingly!- attacked Rangiku, and allowed Hinamori to be seriously hurt.
And then, he had witnessed the aftermath of a mass murder, and said nothing.
Izuru stopped, looking up at the huge building in front of him. The Central Forty-Six. He wasn’t tremendously surprised to find himself here- it wasn’t as if it was the first time. Criminals often returned to the scene of the crime, even if that crime was cowardice.
He was in the middle of turning to go when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Izuru paused, looking back over his shoulder, unable to force back the sudden childish dread.
The door was half open.
He turned to face the front of the building, hands weak at his sides. It loomed up into the black night sky, door yawning open. It was silent, dark, forbidding- but inviting him in.
It was an inexorable fascination that drew him past the heavy door’s threshold. It was dark inside, and for a moment Izuru was certain he could just make out the shapes of bodies slumped over desks, the stench of their blood permeating the air. But he knew full well that they were gone, that every stain had been cleaned away, that there was no trace of the massacre that had occurred here.
The half-open door let in just enough light that he could make his way through the audience room. Izuru stepped carefully, then squinted a little.
There was light coming from a back hallway.
To his credit, he did take a moment to think. Curiosity wasn’t exactly a typical vice of his- Izuru had learned over the years that it was usually best to let well enough alone. And yet, there was something brewing in him tonight that muffled that little voice. Before he had really reached a decision, his feet were moving. Like a moth to a flame, he was following the light.
There were three doors, a weak light coming from underneath each. Izuru hesitated, hands clenching a little at his sides. There was no reiatsu obvious in the building- it felt completely uninhabited. It was more likely than anything that someone had been using empty rooms for storage or been going through old files and had simply forgotten to turn the lights off. There was no reason for this moment to feel so important.
Izuru tried to shake it off- it was ridiculous- and reached for the handle of the first door. If there was anyone inside, he was simply concerned about the open front door. That was all. He pulled the door open a crack, then peered in.
All it took was the sight of a large, hulking frame in the corner of the room for him to shut the door as quickly as he’d opened it. Izuru took a deep breath, leaning one hand on the wall and trying to force his stomach from his throat back to where it belonged. He closed his eyes for a moment.
After all this searching, he had actually found them. And yet, he was still so shocked.
Izuru made sure the door was closed, then forced himself down the hallway to check the next door. Luckily for his heart rate, it was empty. He pulled the second door shut, then took a few more steps down the hall to the third and last door.
For a moment, he just stared at the weak light coming from underneath the door. He had no actual idea how many arrancar had been taken captive. It wasn’t certain that it was Grimmjow behind this door- in fact, he had no way of knowing if Grimmjow was even anywhere in the Seireitei. It would be the safest thing to simply leave it be. He had done his part- he had given him a chance to survive. It was more than he would have expected were their roles reversed.
But it wasn’t enough.
Izuru laid his hand on the door handle.
He didn’t know why. All he knew was that he wanted to see him again.
The handle turned easily under his hand, and Izuru pulled the door open- but just a crack. The room itself was silent, except for the sound of a candle popping. Maybe it was empty after all. He stuck his head in the small opening, then paused.
There were bars in the center of the room, separating it in two. The lone candle was the only light in the room, casting writhing shadows over the wall. Izuru let his eyes follow them back to the corner of the room, where a shoddy hospital bed was jammed against the wall and the bars.
The candlelight set off the contrasts of the arrancar’s skin, between the pale flesh of his thigh exposed by the side slit of his hakama and the ruddy marking of a scar over his chest and midsection. The blood-stained jacket he had been wearing in Hueco Mundo was nowhere to be seen, and the similarly dirtied hakama had been replaced with a pair from a shinigami uniform- ill-fitting, seeming too loose around the waist but too short in the legs. His hands were clasped in front of him in wooden restraints, the heavy block resting on his knees.
But most significant was the red band around his throat, reminiscent of a collar.
Izuru pushed the door open just a bit more. The arrancar’s head lifted at the noise.
“Who’s there?” Grimmjow snapped, eyes searching through the low light. “Show yourself.”
Were Izuru someone who were more easily intimidated, he might have been. Instead he pushed the door open the rest of the way and took a step into the room before letting it close behind him.
He wasn’t sure what he had expected. Surprise- resentment, maybe. But not the slow, almost sly smirk that curled his lips. “Kira Izuru,” Grimmjow pronounced.
“Grimmjow Jaegerjacques,” he returned, taking a few steps closer to the bars. It was a foolish gamble to get within arm’s length of the makeshift prison- he was unarmed, and there was certainly no one without shouting range besides the other arrancar down the hall- but he felt no fear. At least, not a significant amount. There was just no menace in his eyes.
In fact, he almost smiled- it was more of a smirk of amusement, but it was a more pleasant expression nonetheless. “You remembered, huh.”
Izuru laid a hand on the bars, tugging at one experimentally. “I can’t imagine not remembering a name like that,” he said honestly.
Grimmjow’s lips curled just a little more, and he straightened up to what must have been his full height- impressive, even sitting and shackled. “Keep it that way.”
He left a hand on the bars, looking over the tiny half-room. It was completely bare, except for the bed and a small table- even the table was bolted to the floor. Whoever had put these temporary holding cells together had done it with the idea of complete security. The table was topped with a small tray, the remnants of what looked like some plain rice scattered over it. Not even any utensils.
“At least they’re feeding you,” Izuru said, trying to keep some lightness to his voice.
“The food’s shit,” Grimmjow said bluntly. “Barely even worth eating.”
He glanced over at the tray, then bit back the observation that it seemed he’d made quite the effort anyway. “Well… one of the purposes of imprisonment is to give you time to reflect on what put you there in the first place. Your surroundings are as spartan as possible to avoid distractions, to make you focus your mind.”
Grimmjow rolled his eyes and flopped back against the wall, extending his legs in a languorous stretch. “Yeah? So what did I do to put me here?”
Izuru opened his mouth, then closed it again. He knew what the answer was- or at least, what it was supposed to be. But the words were ash in his mouth. By all logic, the arrancar were imprisoned because they fought on Aizen’s side. But it was the same as blaming the sword for where the wielder directed it. Aizen had created them, fed them, clothed them, given them beds to sleep in and names to call their own. How were they to know what their purpose was, what was going on in the world outside of Hueco Mundo?
“You know why you’re here,” Izuru said instead, eyes on the floor somewhere near Grimmjow’s feet. “Because Aizen is Soul Society’s enemy.”
He could feel Grimmjow’s eyes on him. “Well, I sure as hell ain’t Soul Society’s friend.”
“The longer you talk like that, the longer you’ll be in here.”
A short, barking laugh was his reply, and Izuru looked up. Grimmjow was smirking, arms crossed behind his head. “Not exactly somethin’ a regular upstanding citizen would say. You know how it works firsthand, huh?”
In reality, Izuru was aware that he hadn’t actually said anything that damning. It would be easy enough to point that out and defuse the situation before it became anything significant. But that kind of delicacy required the ability to lie convincingly, which was something he’d never possessed. So instead he coughed, eyes flicking back to the floor, stomach twisting. “I-”
“And here I was thinking you were some standup goody-two-shoes little shinigami. Guess not.”
His fingers clenched on the bar. “I’m not proud of anything that happened,” he said hotly, the twist in his stomach reappearing in his chest. “I-”
His voice died in his throat. Grimmjow was simply looking at him, stretched out lazily over the corner of the bed. His fingers were laced behind his head, back arched slightly almost as if he were deliberately showing off the way the candlelight played over his skin, silhouetting each hard muscle and playing down into the hollow in his stomach.
“Well?” Grimmjow prodded.
“I… have to go,” he said in a rush, pulling his hand away from the bars. “I don’t know if anyone saw me come in, I-”
“You’re not supposed t’ be in here?” Grimmjow’s smirk just widened. “This just gets better and better.”
“This isn’t funny,” Izuru snapped before thinking. The second the words passed his lips, he froze- while things had been relatively cordial so far, he had momentarily forgotten that it would be in his best interest to keep things that way. The suppressor collar might block the expression of reiatsu, but Izuru had no doubt that the muscles he’d been admiring only moments earlier would make short work of his restraints without any help.
So he fell silent and just looked at Grimmjow, and Grimmjow looked back at him. The quiet swelled, throbbing in his ears.
And then he grinned. “You know what? You got balls. I think I like you.”
The sense of relief was understandable. The little flutter in his throat was more of a mystery.
Izuru stood for a moment more at the bars, then looked down at the floor as he felt himself smile. “I’m… I’ll-”
“Yeah?”
Izuru looked up, and their eyes met. And just like the first time, his knees sagged, just a little.
“I’ll come back,” he said. “Soon.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” Grimmjow said, and he grinned.
Pairing: Grimmjow/Izuru
Warnings: AU timeline based shortly after the current manga storyline- spoilers for everything that has happened and some things that haven't!
Rating: Currently PG-13(ish)
Half-credit to yashy
Soul Society was a hotbed of activity. Aizen was missing again, many of their higher-ranked shinigami were hospitalized with critical injuries, all security details had been doubled- it was easy to see how several captive Espada could have gone unnoticed. The only ones who had the privilege of knowing they were there were the ones who had captured them and a few of the captains. They had been expressly forbidden to discuss the situation with anyone but Head Captain Yamamoto and Captain Kurotsuchi, which meant Izuru hadn’t spoken a word to anyone. He hadn’t even seen Grimmjow Jaegerjacques since he had turned him over to the Twelfth Company.
It sat badly with him. It was easy enough to tell himself that a captive was no use unless they were healthy and treated humanely, and that Head Captain Yamamoto wouldn’t allow someone who came along willingly to be treated like a dangerous animal, but even his own words weren’t convincing him. Izuru was as versed in Soul Society’s history as anyone else, and he couldn’t help but worry that this would become another one of those spots that was swept under the rug.
He had busied himself with paperwork. It was his usual way of distracting himself- after all, with no captain, there was certainly enough of it piling up. But as the days passing turned into a week, then were approaching a second, it was just too much to push out of his mind.
He was starting to take circuitous routes to drop off his paperwork. He stopped in buildings he hadn’t been in for years- sometimes decades- poking his head in rooms, saying hello to people whose names he couldn’t remember. He had gotten a few puzzled looks, but that had been the extent of it.
Izuru knew he was treading into dangerous waters. He had been expressly instructed to not mention the arrancar to anyone, much less look for him. There had no consequences mentioned, but he could make some guesses.
He had been imprisoned once, and that had only been for one night. That had been bad enough. He couldn’t imagine going back.
Even if he did still belong there.
Misgivings aside, Izuru had waited until night had fallen to do his filing. He felt a lot less conspicuous than when he wandered around during the day. It didn’t hurt that most people had already finished their work day by then, leaving him in relative peace to do his work. He had actually started doing that long before- there were only so many pitying looks one man could handle.
The first place he had looked had been the abandoned buildings near the Twelfth Company’s squad house. That had been the obvious choice- luckily, the buildings were still empty. The place made him nervous. But in the days following, he’d had no more luck with any of the rest of the Seireitei.
Tonight, he had nowhere left to look.
He had been walking for a long time. He’d skirted the edge of Rukongai, paced around the Academy, then gone by all of the squad houses again. But his mind was nowhere near the buildings he could see around him, or the few people he passed. This night, like more nights than he could count, he was inside that cell, clutching his arms to his chest and trying to understand how he had raised his blade to someone he considered a friend.
That had seemed like the ultimate betrayal to him, and yet what followed was so much worse. Captain Ichimaru had coaxed him out of the cell against direct orders. He had- willingly!- attacked Rangiku, and allowed Hinamori to be seriously hurt.
And then, he had witnessed the aftermath of a mass murder, and said nothing.
Izuru stopped, looking up at the huge building in front of him. The Central Forty-Six. He wasn’t tremendously surprised to find himself here- it wasn’t as if it was the first time. Criminals often returned to the scene of the crime, even if that crime was cowardice.
He was in the middle of turning to go when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Izuru paused, looking back over his shoulder, unable to force back the sudden childish dread.
The door was half open.
He turned to face the front of the building, hands weak at his sides. It loomed up into the black night sky, door yawning open. It was silent, dark, forbidding- but inviting him in.
It was an inexorable fascination that drew him past the heavy door’s threshold. It was dark inside, and for a moment Izuru was certain he could just make out the shapes of bodies slumped over desks, the stench of their blood permeating the air. But he knew full well that they were gone, that every stain had been cleaned away, that there was no trace of the massacre that had occurred here.
The half-open door let in just enough light that he could make his way through the audience room. Izuru stepped carefully, then squinted a little.
There was light coming from a back hallway.
To his credit, he did take a moment to think. Curiosity wasn’t exactly a typical vice of his- Izuru had learned over the years that it was usually best to let well enough alone. And yet, there was something brewing in him tonight that muffled that little voice. Before he had really reached a decision, his feet were moving. Like a moth to a flame, he was following the light.
There were three doors, a weak light coming from underneath each. Izuru hesitated, hands clenching a little at his sides. There was no reiatsu obvious in the building- it felt completely uninhabited. It was more likely than anything that someone had been using empty rooms for storage or been going through old files and had simply forgotten to turn the lights off. There was no reason for this moment to feel so important.
Izuru tried to shake it off- it was ridiculous- and reached for the handle of the first door. If there was anyone inside, he was simply concerned about the open front door. That was all. He pulled the door open a crack, then peered in.
All it took was the sight of a large, hulking frame in the corner of the room for him to shut the door as quickly as he’d opened it. Izuru took a deep breath, leaning one hand on the wall and trying to force his stomach from his throat back to where it belonged. He closed his eyes for a moment.
After all this searching, he had actually found them. And yet, he was still so shocked.
Izuru made sure the door was closed, then forced himself down the hallway to check the next door. Luckily for his heart rate, it was empty. He pulled the second door shut, then took a few more steps down the hall to the third and last door.
For a moment, he just stared at the weak light coming from underneath the door. He had no actual idea how many arrancar had been taken captive. It wasn’t certain that it was Grimmjow behind this door- in fact, he had no way of knowing if Grimmjow was even anywhere in the Seireitei. It would be the safest thing to simply leave it be. He had done his part- he had given him a chance to survive. It was more than he would have expected were their roles reversed.
But it wasn’t enough.
Izuru laid his hand on the door handle.
He didn’t know why. All he knew was that he wanted to see him again.
The handle turned easily under his hand, and Izuru pulled the door open- but just a crack. The room itself was silent, except for the sound of a candle popping. Maybe it was empty after all. He stuck his head in the small opening, then paused.
There were bars in the center of the room, separating it in two. The lone candle was the only light in the room, casting writhing shadows over the wall. Izuru let his eyes follow them back to the corner of the room, where a shoddy hospital bed was jammed against the wall and the bars.
The candlelight set off the contrasts of the arrancar’s skin, between the pale flesh of his thigh exposed by the side slit of his hakama and the ruddy marking of a scar over his chest and midsection. The blood-stained jacket he had been wearing in Hueco Mundo was nowhere to be seen, and the similarly dirtied hakama had been replaced with a pair from a shinigami uniform- ill-fitting, seeming too loose around the waist but too short in the legs. His hands were clasped in front of him in wooden restraints, the heavy block resting on his knees.
But most significant was the red band around his throat, reminiscent of a collar.
Izuru pushed the door open just a bit more. The arrancar’s head lifted at the noise.
“Who’s there?” Grimmjow snapped, eyes searching through the low light. “Show yourself.”
Were Izuru someone who were more easily intimidated, he might have been. Instead he pushed the door open the rest of the way and took a step into the room before letting it close behind him.
He wasn’t sure what he had expected. Surprise- resentment, maybe. But not the slow, almost sly smirk that curled his lips. “Kira Izuru,” Grimmjow pronounced.
“Grimmjow Jaegerjacques,” he returned, taking a few steps closer to the bars. It was a foolish gamble to get within arm’s length of the makeshift prison- he was unarmed, and there was certainly no one without shouting range besides the other arrancar down the hall- but he felt no fear. At least, not a significant amount. There was just no menace in his eyes.
In fact, he almost smiled- it was more of a smirk of amusement, but it was a more pleasant expression nonetheless. “You remembered, huh.”
Izuru laid a hand on the bars, tugging at one experimentally. “I can’t imagine not remembering a name like that,” he said honestly.
Grimmjow’s lips curled just a little more, and he straightened up to what must have been his full height- impressive, even sitting and shackled. “Keep it that way.”
He left a hand on the bars, looking over the tiny half-room. It was completely bare, except for the bed and a small table- even the table was bolted to the floor. Whoever had put these temporary holding cells together had done it with the idea of complete security. The table was topped with a small tray, the remnants of what looked like some plain rice scattered over it. Not even any utensils.
“At least they’re feeding you,” Izuru said, trying to keep some lightness to his voice.
“The food’s shit,” Grimmjow said bluntly. “Barely even worth eating.”
He glanced over at the tray, then bit back the observation that it seemed he’d made quite the effort anyway. “Well… one of the purposes of imprisonment is to give you time to reflect on what put you there in the first place. Your surroundings are as spartan as possible to avoid distractions, to make you focus your mind.”
Grimmjow rolled his eyes and flopped back against the wall, extending his legs in a languorous stretch. “Yeah? So what did I do to put me here?”
Izuru opened his mouth, then closed it again. He knew what the answer was- or at least, what it was supposed to be. But the words were ash in his mouth. By all logic, the arrancar were imprisoned because they fought on Aizen’s side. But it was the same as blaming the sword for where the wielder directed it. Aizen had created them, fed them, clothed them, given them beds to sleep in and names to call their own. How were they to know what their purpose was, what was going on in the world outside of Hueco Mundo?
“You know why you’re here,” Izuru said instead, eyes on the floor somewhere near Grimmjow’s feet. “Because Aizen is Soul Society’s enemy.”
He could feel Grimmjow’s eyes on him. “Well, I sure as hell ain’t Soul Society’s friend.”
“The longer you talk like that, the longer you’ll be in here.”
A short, barking laugh was his reply, and Izuru looked up. Grimmjow was smirking, arms crossed behind his head. “Not exactly somethin’ a regular upstanding citizen would say. You know how it works firsthand, huh?”
In reality, Izuru was aware that he hadn’t actually said anything that damning. It would be easy enough to point that out and defuse the situation before it became anything significant. But that kind of delicacy required the ability to lie convincingly, which was something he’d never possessed. So instead he coughed, eyes flicking back to the floor, stomach twisting. “I-”
“And here I was thinking you were some standup goody-two-shoes little shinigami. Guess not.”
His fingers clenched on the bar. “I’m not proud of anything that happened,” he said hotly, the twist in his stomach reappearing in his chest. “I-”
His voice died in his throat. Grimmjow was simply looking at him, stretched out lazily over the corner of the bed. His fingers were laced behind his head, back arched slightly almost as if he were deliberately showing off the way the candlelight played over his skin, silhouetting each hard muscle and playing down into the hollow in his stomach.
“Well?” Grimmjow prodded.
“I… have to go,” he said in a rush, pulling his hand away from the bars. “I don’t know if anyone saw me come in, I-”
“You’re not supposed t’ be in here?” Grimmjow’s smirk just widened. “This just gets better and better.”
“This isn’t funny,” Izuru snapped before thinking. The second the words passed his lips, he froze- while things had been relatively cordial so far, he had momentarily forgotten that it would be in his best interest to keep things that way. The suppressor collar might block the expression of reiatsu, but Izuru had no doubt that the muscles he’d been admiring only moments earlier would make short work of his restraints without any help.
So he fell silent and just looked at Grimmjow, and Grimmjow looked back at him. The quiet swelled, throbbing in his ears.
And then he grinned. “You know what? You got balls. I think I like you.”
The sense of relief was understandable. The little flutter in his throat was more of a mystery.
Izuru stood for a moment more at the bars, then looked down at the floor as he felt himself smile. “I’m… I’ll-”
“Yeah?”
Izuru looked up, and their eyes met. And just like the first time, his knees sagged, just a little.
“I’ll come back,” he said. “Soon.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” Grimmjow said, and he grinned.