(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
He saw Grimmjow again the next night.
The arrancar had greeted him with a smirk and a nod. The realization that he had been expected was unsettling, but not completely disagreeable- in fact, Izuru had to confess to being a little pleased that Grimmjow had taken his promise to heart. It wasn’t as though he had any real reason to believe him, but he had taken his word just the same.
Izuru had taken a chair from an empty room and pulled it up next to the bars, facing the bed. At the beginning, Grimmjow had faced him, sitting easily back against the wall.
They had talked awkwardly about nothing for a few minutes- or rather, Izuru had talked, and Grimmjow had watched him with unreadable eyes. And then he had asked about Aizen.
Izuru had hesitated, at first. A guilty conscience had the effect of making him overly cautious- if he slipped, if he said something more than he should, and it turned out that this was nothing more than a scheme of Aizen’s, he would never be able to forgive himself. But it wasn’t as though Aizen couldn’t have told him just as much himself.
And he just couldn’t shake the feeling that Grimmjow deserved to know.
So he had told him the story, beginning to end, as he would have told it to anyone. The facts were all that were really necessary, and even they took what seemed like hours to tell.
At the beginning, Grimmjow had just leaned back against the wall. As Izuru kept talking, he’d leaned forward. Then brought his legs up onto the bed, folding them and leaning down onto his knees. Then he’d forgone the bed entirely and stood. By the time Izuru had gotten to Aizen‘s actual defection, he was prowling the cell like a caged animal.
And then it was late, so he had taken his leave. Grimmjow had only grunted when he’d said goodbye, and had been staring at the wall as he closed the door.
Izuru came again the next night, not feeling quite as comfortable as he had before. But this time Grimmjow had gotten up and walked over to the bars, greeting him with a sharp grin. Then he’d offered him the remains of his dinner- what looked like rice and some sort of leafy vegetable- and Izuru had been unable to hold back a laugh. Grimmjow had looked pleased.
Grimmjow hadn’t even bothered to sit that time. He’d paced the cell, sometimes pausing to take a few swift punches at the air. They had talked about how it had rained all that day. Grimmjow had never seen rain.
When he walked in the third night, Grimmjow was tugging at one table leg, watching how it rattled. When Izuru walked up to the bars, he’d stood and then came over to meet him on the other side. When Izuru had pulled up his chair, Grimmjow sat on the bed. They had made more small talk that night, even though it became more and more obvious as time went on that there was something on Grimmjow’s mind. It was only half an hour before he had gotten up to pace again, walking the length of the cell and then stretching up to look out the window.
Izuru hadn’t pried.
The next day had been the one out of the week he took to work with the squad, and their exercises had stretched on long into the evening. By the time he made it to the Central Forty-Six, Grimmjow had greeted him with a terse “where the hell have you been?” and had sat on the bed with his back to the bars.
The attitude had stung him, and he’d almost left. But every movement he’d made- dragging the chair, sitting down, getting up again- had been followed by the tiniest motion of Grimmjow’s head. He was watching him out of the corner of his eye, even as he put up the pretense of ignoring his very presence.
So he’d stayed, and told him about his day, pretending he didn’t notice the lack of response. By the time he’d left, long into the early morning, Grimmjow had gotten up to pace again, coming back to sit on the bed next to him every few minutes before getting up to walk some more.
When he’d left, Grimmjow had moved up to the bars again, and had stayed there watching until he closed the door.
Izuru liked to think that he was reasonably intelligent. But he knew that what he was doing was stupid- even dangerous. It had been three weeks, and there had been no announcement made to the companies that arrancar were even being held. It was being covered up. While it was possible the captains knew, Izuru had his doubts. The only ones who had to know what was going on were those who had captured the arrancar in Hueco Mundo and those who were providing care for them now- but there was no way to know who that was without running the risk of exposing what he had been doing.
Every bit of logical thinking he could muster told him to stop. He had satisfied his curiosity- Grimmjow was alive. He was being cared for enough to keep him that way. But reason wasn’t enough to counteract emotion- it never really had been, despite his best efforts- and it was sentimentality that kept him coming back.
Grimmjow was withering before his eyes. The cell wasn’t long enough for more than two or three steps, there was no interaction (except Izuru himself), and the suppressing collar had effectively rendered him if not helpless, then crippled. But even more than that, there was something that was eating away at him, something that would surface behind his eyes momentarily and then retreat.
Izuru had seen it happen before. With Abarai, when he had allowed himself to be separated from his childhood friend in the Academy. With Hisagi, when he had thrown himself headfirst into replacing his former captain and refused to admit that the betrayal might have affected him, too. With Hinamori, when she realized that the Aizen she had built up in her heart was nothing more than a lie. With Matsumoto, when Captain Ichimaru had made her believe for a moment that maybe he would miss her.
With himself.
It was easy to tell himself it wasn’t his concern when he was in his own room, far away from that pathetic little cell. There was no reason for him to worry about it- he had to take care of himself, after all, and Grimmjow Jaegerjacques was an arrancar, created and groomed to be Aizen’s weapon. A Hollow and a gleeful killer. He was projecting his own insecurities onto a creature that had none of them.
But every night he went, and every night he felt himself fall just a little bit farther.
His work was suffering. More than once, he had forgotten to eat. One day, Hinamori had stopped him in the hallway and asked him if he was all right, that he looked a little sick.
Hinamori. Hinamori, of all people, who still spent most days with eyes bloodshot from crying.
So he had sworn to himself that he would made a decision, and soon. That night. He would go see Grimmjow one more time, and if he couldn’t find a reason to complain about his treatment to someone who mattered- a reason beyond his own uneasiness- then it would be the last time.
It was cloudy that night. Izuru occupied his thoughts on the long walk over with trying to determine if it would rain or not- the air was heavy, there was a light wind, but the clouds just didn’t seem full enough.
The inside of the Central Forty-Six was as silent as ever. Izuru pulled the heavy door shut behind him, and took a moment to squint through the dark at the empty desks, finding his path through them. He walked slowly, feeling ahead with each step.
Whoever had brought the prisoners their ‘dinner’ had left Grimmjow’s door open just a crack, and candlelight lit the hallway.
Izuru laid a hand on the door, then pushed it open slowly, carefully, knowing that one of the hinges squeaked. He took a step inside once the crack was wide enough, then shut the door behind him.
“Hey, Kira.”
Grimmjow was stretched out over the bed, arms behind his head. As Izuru came closer, he lifted his head a little, favoring him with half a grin.
“What if it hadn’t been me?” Izuru pulled the chair up, frowning a little. “That could have been dangerous.”
“I knew it was you.” He stretched, back arching lazily. Izuru averted his eyes. “No one else comes in here this late.”
“I suppose you’re right.” He sat back in the rickety chair, winding his fingers together.
Grimmjow flung long legs into the air, then brought them back down just as hard, using his own weight as a lever to push him up into a sitting position. He folded his legs and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Early tonight,” he observed.
“Am I?” Izuru laughed a little weakly. “I hadn’t noticed.”
Grimmjow narrowed his eyes, leaning a little further forward. His eyes searched over his face, probing deep, starting at his eyes and moving in widening circles down until they stopped suddenly at his arm.
“What’s that?” he asked abruptly.
Izuru blinked, then followed his gaze to his arm. Then he nodded, understanding, and reached down to untie the knot, pulling off the badge.
“This is my vice-captain’s badge,” he said, holding it up so Grimmjow could see. “It designates me as second-in-command of the Third Company.”
“Second-in-command,” Grimmjow repeated. “So… Ichimaru was your captain.”
There was no way to stop the tightening in his shoulders, so Izuru didn’t bother to try. He lowered his head for a moment, looking down at the badge in his hands.
“Yes. He was.”
For a moment, it was silent. Izuru looked over the badge- the three lines, the engraving of the marigold.
“You had it pretty bad for him, huh.”
Izuru’s head snapped up before he could stop himself, eyes widening. “How- how did you know that?” he whispered, stomach twisting. How could it be so obvious? He had barely spoken of Ichimaru, let alone in a way that would betray him. He had been so careful.
“I didn’t,” Grimmjow said simply. “But I do now.”
Izuru just stared at him for a moment. His cheeks were hot. His chest hurt.
“You look like I just killed your dog.” Grimmjow leaned his chin on a hand, fingers of his free hand tapping a lazy rhythm on his leg. “That’s really such a terrible thing for me t’ know?”
He pushed up off the chair, and this time it was Izuru who was pacing. “It’s not something I try to spread around,” he said, refusing to lift his head. “It’s…”
“Pathetic? Humiliating?”
He whipped around, prepared to snap back at him, then paused. Grimmjow was still leaned forward, chin in his hand, but his entire manner had changed. His eyes were serious, the faint curl of his lips gone.
Izuru stepped up to the bars, laying a hand against them. “Grimmjow,” he said quietly.
Grimmjow just watched him for a moment. Then he uncurled his legs, straightening his back and getting up.
He kept his hand against the bars, eyes following him. “What was Aizen to you?”
Grimmjow stopped in his tracks, hands clenching into fists.
Izuru didn’t say any more. He didn’t need to. Grimmjow’s shoulders drew up, tensed, and then he turned to the bars. His eyes were fiery, the bone over his jaw grinding as his own teeth must have been. “Aizen’s a lying piece of shit,” he snapped. “He‘s not worth caring about. I hope he’s dead. That asshole‘s nothing to me.”
“Then why do you look so lost?”
At his words, Grimmjow’s eyes opened a little wider, and for a moment he just looked back at Izuru. He looked puzzled, as if he had just been told something fantastical- and the way his face had opened, become almost vulnerable, it was more obvious than it ever had been before that there was something within him, something at the seat of his being that even Aizen had been unable to touch.
Then his hand shot through the bars and grabbed Izuru by the front of his haori, dragging him up against the bars. For a moment, his heart was in his throat, and his hands were moving to take hold of a sword that wasn‘t there- it was his fault, he should have known, he had given him so many opportunities, he had grown complacent in front of one of the world’s most dangerous creations, he had felt safe-
And then he felt Grimmjow’s mouth on top of his, the other hand moving through the bars to grasp the back of his head, and the clutching in his stomach was for an entirely different reason. Izuru could feel the bone on his jaw scraping his cheek, his haori wrinkling under the unforgiving grasp, but more than anything else his fingers were tangling into his hair and his mouth was hot.
Izuru pulled back a moment later- one moment that was far longer than he should have allowed- and teeth ghosted over his lip. Whether it was those past his lips or the ones on his jaw, he had no idea. The realization made him a little dizzy.
Grimmjow just looked at him. The fingers curled into his haori had loosened, but his other hand remained cradling the back of his head, tipping Izuru’s face up towards his.
He knew he had to say something. Whether it was to scold him, or to defuse the situation, or just let him down gently, he had to. This couldn’t go on. He had already let it go on for far too long.
But all he could do was look back at him, and in the back of his mind, a tiny voice babbled away about how not like Captain Ichimaru he had felt.
And how not like Captain Ichimaru, he knew he could back away. He had a choice, he had a decision, and if he wanted he could walk out the door and never come back. Nothing bad would happen to him if he did.
But Izuru reached both hands through the bars and took his face into his hands, bringing him back down. Grimmjow huffed out a little sigh against his mouth before kissing him back eagerly, the hot breath sending a long shiver down his spine. Grimmjow flattened a hand on his back and pulled him up against the bars- they dug into him hard, but Izuru imagined he could feel the heat of Grimmjow’s body, radiating into the air and curling around him.
He pulled back just far enough to breathe, and Grimmjow left his forehead against the bars, eyes heavy and half curtained.
“I’m breaking you out of here,” Izuru whispered.
For the first time he could remember, Grimmjow’s face brightened into a smile.
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
He saw Grimmjow again the next night.
The arrancar had greeted him with a smirk and a nod. The realization that he had been expected was unsettling, but not completely disagreeable- in fact, Izuru had to confess to being a little pleased that Grimmjow had taken his promise to heart. It wasn’t as though he had any real reason to believe him, but he had taken his word just the same.
Izuru had taken a chair from an empty room and pulled it up next to the bars, facing the bed. At the beginning, Grimmjow had faced him, sitting easily back against the wall.
They had talked awkwardly about nothing for a few minutes- or rather, Izuru had talked, and Grimmjow had watched him with unreadable eyes. And then he had asked about Aizen.
Izuru had hesitated, at first. A guilty conscience had the effect of making him overly cautious- if he slipped, if he said something more than he should, and it turned out that this was nothing more than a scheme of Aizen’s, he would never be able to forgive himself. But it wasn’t as though Aizen couldn’t have told him just as much himself.
And he just couldn’t shake the feeling that Grimmjow deserved to know.
So he had told him the story, beginning to end, as he would have told it to anyone. The facts were all that were really necessary, and even they took what seemed like hours to tell.
At the beginning, Grimmjow had just leaned back against the wall. As Izuru kept talking, he’d leaned forward. Then brought his legs up onto the bed, folding them and leaning down onto his knees. Then he’d forgone the bed entirely and stood. By the time Izuru had gotten to Aizen‘s actual defection, he was prowling the cell like a caged animal.
And then it was late, so he had taken his leave. Grimmjow had only grunted when he’d said goodbye, and had been staring at the wall as he closed the door.
Izuru came again the next night, not feeling quite as comfortable as he had before. But this time Grimmjow had gotten up and walked over to the bars, greeting him with a sharp grin. Then he’d offered him the remains of his dinner- what looked like rice and some sort of leafy vegetable- and Izuru had been unable to hold back a laugh. Grimmjow had looked pleased.
Grimmjow hadn’t even bothered to sit that time. He’d paced the cell, sometimes pausing to take a few swift punches at the air. They had talked about how it had rained all that day. Grimmjow had never seen rain.
When he walked in the third night, Grimmjow was tugging at one table leg, watching how it rattled. When Izuru walked up to the bars, he’d stood and then came over to meet him on the other side. When Izuru had pulled up his chair, Grimmjow sat on the bed. They had made more small talk that night, even though it became more and more obvious as time went on that there was something on Grimmjow’s mind. It was only half an hour before he had gotten up to pace again, walking the length of the cell and then stretching up to look out the window.
Izuru hadn’t pried.
The next day had been the one out of the week he took to work with the squad, and their exercises had stretched on long into the evening. By the time he made it to the Central Forty-Six, Grimmjow had greeted him with a terse “where the hell have you been?” and had sat on the bed with his back to the bars.
The attitude had stung him, and he’d almost left. But every movement he’d made- dragging the chair, sitting down, getting up again- had been followed by the tiniest motion of Grimmjow’s head. He was watching him out of the corner of his eye, even as he put up the pretense of ignoring his very presence.
So he’d stayed, and told him about his day, pretending he didn’t notice the lack of response. By the time he’d left, long into the early morning, Grimmjow had gotten up to pace again, coming back to sit on the bed next to him every few minutes before getting up to walk some more.
When he’d left, Grimmjow had moved up to the bars again, and had stayed there watching until he closed the door.
Izuru liked to think that he was reasonably intelligent. But he knew that what he was doing was stupid- even dangerous. It had been three weeks, and there had been no announcement made to the companies that arrancar were even being held. It was being covered up. While it was possible the captains knew, Izuru had his doubts. The only ones who had to know what was going on were those who had captured the arrancar in Hueco Mundo and those who were providing care for them now- but there was no way to know who that was without running the risk of exposing what he had been doing.
Every bit of logical thinking he could muster told him to stop. He had satisfied his curiosity- Grimmjow was alive. He was being cared for enough to keep him that way. But reason wasn’t enough to counteract emotion- it never really had been, despite his best efforts- and it was sentimentality that kept him coming back.
Grimmjow was withering before his eyes. The cell wasn’t long enough for more than two or three steps, there was no interaction (except Izuru himself), and the suppressing collar had effectively rendered him if not helpless, then crippled. But even more than that, there was something that was eating away at him, something that would surface behind his eyes momentarily and then retreat.
Izuru had seen it happen before. With Abarai, when he had allowed himself to be separated from his childhood friend in the Academy. With Hisagi, when he had thrown himself headfirst into replacing his former captain and refused to admit that the betrayal might have affected him, too. With Hinamori, when she realized that the Aizen she had built up in her heart was nothing more than a lie. With Matsumoto, when Captain Ichimaru had made her believe for a moment that maybe he would miss her.
With himself.
It was easy to tell himself it wasn’t his concern when he was in his own room, far away from that pathetic little cell. There was no reason for him to worry about it- he had to take care of himself, after all, and Grimmjow Jaegerjacques was an arrancar, created and groomed to be Aizen’s weapon. A Hollow and a gleeful killer. He was projecting his own insecurities onto a creature that had none of them.
But every night he went, and every night he felt himself fall just a little bit farther.
His work was suffering. More than once, he had forgotten to eat. One day, Hinamori had stopped him in the hallway and asked him if he was all right, that he looked a little sick.
Hinamori. Hinamori, of all people, who still spent most days with eyes bloodshot from crying.
So he had sworn to himself that he would made a decision, and soon. That night. He would go see Grimmjow one more time, and if he couldn’t find a reason to complain about his treatment to someone who mattered- a reason beyond his own uneasiness- then it would be the last time.
It was cloudy that night. Izuru occupied his thoughts on the long walk over with trying to determine if it would rain or not- the air was heavy, there was a light wind, but the clouds just didn’t seem full enough.
The inside of the Central Forty-Six was as silent as ever. Izuru pulled the heavy door shut behind him, and took a moment to squint through the dark at the empty desks, finding his path through them. He walked slowly, feeling ahead with each step.
Whoever had brought the prisoners their ‘dinner’ had left Grimmjow’s door open just a crack, and candlelight lit the hallway.
Izuru laid a hand on the door, then pushed it open slowly, carefully, knowing that one of the hinges squeaked. He took a step inside once the crack was wide enough, then shut the door behind him.
“Hey, Kira.”
Grimmjow was stretched out over the bed, arms behind his head. As Izuru came closer, he lifted his head a little, favoring him with half a grin.
“What if it hadn’t been me?” Izuru pulled the chair up, frowning a little. “That could have been dangerous.”
“I knew it was you.” He stretched, back arching lazily. Izuru averted his eyes. “No one else comes in here this late.”
“I suppose you’re right.” He sat back in the rickety chair, winding his fingers together.
Grimmjow flung long legs into the air, then brought them back down just as hard, using his own weight as a lever to push him up into a sitting position. He folded his legs and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Early tonight,” he observed.
“Am I?” Izuru laughed a little weakly. “I hadn’t noticed.”
Grimmjow narrowed his eyes, leaning a little further forward. His eyes searched over his face, probing deep, starting at his eyes and moving in widening circles down until they stopped suddenly at his arm.
“What’s that?” he asked abruptly.
Izuru blinked, then followed his gaze to his arm. Then he nodded, understanding, and reached down to untie the knot, pulling off the badge.
“This is my vice-captain’s badge,” he said, holding it up so Grimmjow could see. “It designates me as second-in-command of the Third Company.”
“Second-in-command,” Grimmjow repeated. “So… Ichimaru was your captain.”
There was no way to stop the tightening in his shoulders, so Izuru didn’t bother to try. He lowered his head for a moment, looking down at the badge in his hands.
“Yes. He was.”
For a moment, it was silent. Izuru looked over the badge- the three lines, the engraving of the marigold.
“You had it pretty bad for him, huh.”
Izuru’s head snapped up before he could stop himself, eyes widening. “How- how did you know that?” he whispered, stomach twisting. How could it be so obvious? He had barely spoken of Ichimaru, let alone in a way that would betray him. He had been so careful.
“I didn’t,” Grimmjow said simply. “But I do now.”
Izuru just stared at him for a moment. His cheeks were hot. His chest hurt.
“You look like I just killed your dog.” Grimmjow leaned his chin on a hand, fingers of his free hand tapping a lazy rhythm on his leg. “That’s really such a terrible thing for me t’ know?”
He pushed up off the chair, and this time it was Izuru who was pacing. “It’s not something I try to spread around,” he said, refusing to lift his head. “It’s…”
“Pathetic? Humiliating?”
He whipped around, prepared to snap back at him, then paused. Grimmjow was still leaned forward, chin in his hand, but his entire manner had changed. His eyes were serious, the faint curl of his lips gone.
Izuru stepped up to the bars, laying a hand against them. “Grimmjow,” he said quietly.
Grimmjow just watched him for a moment. Then he uncurled his legs, straightening his back and getting up.
He kept his hand against the bars, eyes following him. “What was Aizen to you?”
Grimmjow stopped in his tracks, hands clenching into fists.
Izuru didn’t say any more. He didn’t need to. Grimmjow’s shoulders drew up, tensed, and then he turned to the bars. His eyes were fiery, the bone over his jaw grinding as his own teeth must have been. “Aizen’s a lying piece of shit,” he snapped. “He‘s not worth caring about. I hope he’s dead. That asshole‘s nothing to me.”
“Then why do you look so lost?”
At his words, Grimmjow’s eyes opened a little wider, and for a moment he just looked back at Izuru. He looked puzzled, as if he had just been told something fantastical- and the way his face had opened, become almost vulnerable, it was more obvious than it ever had been before that there was something within him, something at the seat of his being that even Aizen had been unable to touch.
Then his hand shot through the bars and grabbed Izuru by the front of his haori, dragging him up against the bars. For a moment, his heart was in his throat, and his hands were moving to take hold of a sword that wasn‘t there- it was his fault, he should have known, he had given him so many opportunities, he had grown complacent in front of one of the world’s most dangerous creations, he had felt safe-
And then he felt Grimmjow’s mouth on top of his, the other hand moving through the bars to grasp the back of his head, and the clutching in his stomach was for an entirely different reason. Izuru could feel the bone on his jaw scraping his cheek, his haori wrinkling under the unforgiving grasp, but more than anything else his fingers were tangling into his hair and his mouth was hot.
Izuru pulled back a moment later- one moment that was far longer than he should have allowed- and teeth ghosted over his lip. Whether it was those past his lips or the ones on his jaw, he had no idea. The realization made him a little dizzy.
Grimmjow just looked at him. The fingers curled into his haori had loosened, but his other hand remained cradling the back of his head, tipping Izuru’s face up towards his.
He knew he had to say something. Whether it was to scold him, or to defuse the situation, or just let him down gently, he had to. This couldn’t go on. He had already let it go on for far too long.
But all he could do was look back at him, and in the back of his mind, a tiny voice babbled away about how not like Captain Ichimaru he had felt.
And how not like Captain Ichimaru, he knew he could back away. He had a choice, he had a decision, and if he wanted he could walk out the door and never come back. Nothing bad would happen to him if he did.
But Izuru reached both hands through the bars and took his face into his hands, bringing him back down. Grimmjow huffed out a little sigh against his mouth before kissing him back eagerly, the hot breath sending a long shiver down his spine. Grimmjow flattened a hand on his back and pulled him up against the bars- they dug into him hard, but Izuru imagined he could feel the heat of Grimmjow’s body, radiating into the air and curling around him.
He pulled back just far enough to breathe, and Grimmjow left his forehead against the bars, eyes heavy and half curtained.
“I’m breaking you out of here,” Izuru whispered.
For the first time he could remember, Grimmjow’s face brightened into a smile.