Pairing: Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez x Ichigo Kurosaki
Music:Bodies, by Drowning Pool
Word count: ~ 1,500
Rating: T
Prompt 3: Sky
From flat on his back, Ichigo stared up at the night sky above him, trying not to pant too hard for air. He felt slightly vindicated by the fact that Grimmjow, lying a few feet away, was breathing just as hard, and was just as battered and bleeding as Ichigo.
Tipping his head back, Ichigo ignored the tacky feeling of drying blood and the grittiness of the sand underneath him, instead focusing on the shock of sky-blue hair that he could only just see. He had known, after the interruption of their fight and the following insanity with Aizen, that Grimmjow was not dead. He couldn't die, not when Ichigo had beaten him. Some fighters would have taken that as a crushing blow to their ego and ability, but Grimmjow treated it like something he had to overcome—much as Ichigo himself did, in that situation. Now, though, he wondered what would happen. Was this enough of a draw that Grimmjow felt satisfied? Or would he get up and keep fighting until one of them was dead?
Without a doubt, the old Grimmjow would have continued it to the death, but this new Grimmjow, without the influence of Aizen, seemed far more sane—easier, almost at ease in his on skin in a way the old one had never been. It could have been the absence of the Hōgyoku, or the absence of a crazed madman with a god complex, or even the result of the thin bone crown Ichigo could see under his light blue hair.
"Well?" he asked after a moment, when he could speak without gasping. "Do we keep fighting?"
After so long dealing with Soul Society, Ichigo understood the benefits of being straightforward.
Grimmjow huffed and rolled over to prop himself up on one arm, staring down at the Vizard with a raised eyebrow. "Ya really wanna get up and do that again?" he drawled, even as he fingered Pantera thoughtfully. Then he obviously dismissed the idea of another round and dropped back into the sand, waving one clawed hand at Ichigo. "Nah, I'm good. Don't ya have somewhere to be, shinigami?"
"Vizard," Ichigo corrected, and while at one time that statement would have been bitter, he'd had time to come to grips with what he was—and really, if Soul Society's treatment of heroes was anything to go by, he wasn't sure any longer if he even wanted to be a part of it. Shinji had at least been that much correct.
His modification earned him another raised brow from the former Espada. "Yer not a shinigami anymore? Funny. Ya still look like one. And fight like one."
"But I don't," Ichigo countered with something suspiciously close to amusement. The heat had to be getting to him. Or the exhaustion. Or the fact that this was the first real conversation he had had with anyone in months, beyond the requisite "Surrender, demon!" and "Go fuck yourself and die in a fire," that he traded with whatever overworked, trembling shinigami they had sent to capture him that week. He waved a hand over his body, where his wounds were already healing at a steady rate. "The other shinigami aren't half-Hollow. They can't fight with a mask, or call on their inner demon for more power, or take down Aizen. I'm not a shinigami anymore."
"They're cowards." Grimmjow dismissed the entirety of the Gotei 13 with a wave of his hand. "Would keel right over if they were ever in a real fight." He grumbled for a moment, like a cat kicked off a sunny windowsill, then levered himself to his feet with a grunt. He stretched, casting a sharp look at Ichigo. "Well? Ya coming?"
For the life of him, Ichigo couldn't think why it would be a bad idea to do so, or to even ask where they were going. He just sighed and rose, leaning on Tensa Zangetsu like a walking stick—which Tensa would, not doubt, take umbrage with the next time Ichigo saw him. Not that he cared too much. Tensa was fun to piss off like that. It was far more satisfying than doing it to the calm, collected, and ever-serene Zangetsu.
"Well?" he asked again, looking at his blue-haired guide expectantly. Grimmjow rolled his eyes and leapt forward, his sonido sudden but not unexpected, and Ichigo followed easily enough with shunpo.
Instead of heading for the ruins of Las Noches, as Ichigo had thought they would, they made for a series of cliffs at the very edge of the horizon. Adjucas and Arrancar moved rapidly in and out of a series of caverns, each one obviously with purpose, and they barely looked up as Grimmjow and Ichigo flashed past them, the former Sexta Espada making for a cavern that was larger than the rest, with a black throne on a raised dais at the far end. Grimmjow settled himself onto the throne as Ichigo looked around the room. It was part of a series of natural caves, from what he could tell, probably connected at some point to the caves he and the others had used to escape the Menos Forest.
"Like it, Kurosaki?" Grimmjow demanded after a few moments, and Ichigo looked back at him and nearly laughed. He had arranged himself on the throne in the same way Aizen had always sat before, but Aizen had never made it nearly as sexy as Grimmjow did.
"You're the king now?" he asked, and somehow it fit completely.
Grimmjow shrugged, and it was nearly bashful—if a six-foot-one, blue-haired former Espada could look bashful. "My Fracción used to call me that," he said. "Their king. We were trying to become Vasto Lorde, but they gave up before we reached that level." His gaze grew distant and brooding for a moment before he cleared it with a quick shake of his head. "They've probably already been reborn into the world of the living. Heh. Wonder how they're doing with that."
Ichigo wondered if that was one of the keys to the Espada's strength, that they knew death led only to a different world, and therefore didn't fear it. It should have been the same for the shinigami, but he had been around them long enough to know that the majority of them fought only for second-hand pride. Kenpachi, one of the strongest, fought for fun, and Byakuya, another of the strongest, fought for honor. Did fighting like the Espada—for something other than pride in a flawed system, for something that mattered to them—give them their strength?
The soft rush of breath over his skin brought him back from his thoughts, and he glanced up to see Grimmjow only a few inches from him, staring down at him with intent blue eyes, a few shades darker than his sky-blue hair. The blue-green marks above the slant of his cheekbones crinkled slightly as he grinned.
"So?" he asked, and his voice was a rough-soft purr. "Did you figure it out yet?"
Somehow, it seemed the most natural thing in the world for Ichigo to lean up, press his fingers against those strong, sharp cheekbones, and pull Grimmjow's lips down to meet his own. It was a chaste kiss, at first, just the dry, soft brush of lips as hands settled on hard, muscular lines. Then Grimmjow tilted his head and deepened the kiss, tongue sliding out to taste Ichigo's mouth ever so delicately, with the finesse of a hunting cat. Ichigo let him, tasting back, reveling in the hot-wet-subtle-sweet flavor that flooded his mouth. Grimmjow's hands were huge and firm, one gripping his waist and the other curled around the back of his head. And it was contact, when for months now he had only ever touched someone to hurt them. The press of skin, of lips and tongue and bodies intertwining, was nearly maddening after so long.
They broke apart, and Grimmjow chuckled softly, feathering kisses over Ichigo's cheeks and brow and eyes, pulling him close and wrapping him in a warm embrace. "I guess you did, then."
It took Ichigo a few moments to understand what he was talking about, but then he rolled his eyes and gave the former Espada a flat look. "If you call me your queen, I'll castrate you," he threatened, even though it obviously had no effect. Grimmjow simply grinned unrepentantly, drawing him in for another incongruously gentle kiss.
"Hard to call someone subordinate when they can kick yer ass," he pointed out when they broke for breath, running one hand through Ichigo's orange hair. "Even if I can kick yours back just as hard."
Ichigo snorted and pulled him back down. "Consort, then. Maybe."
Grimmjow grinned fiercely and pulled him closer. "I can work with maybe."