Characters: Grimmjow, Sun-Sun
Summary: They've met before.
Pairings: Grimmjow x Sun-Sun
Warnings/Spoilers: No spoilers; AU
Timeline: Pre-manga
Author's Note: This takes place before either one of them die and become Hollows. Please let me know what you thought; this is my first time writing anything about Grimmjow. I know this isn't particularly "romantic"; just bear with me.
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.
The accumulated filth of dust and condensation and sweat and smoke on the window gives it a brownish cast, almost like a stained glass painting but in no way containing the delicate beauty of stained glass works. It's instead just an ugly affair, plain and ordinary. The lamplights from outside, lit when the sun goes down outside, can barely penetrate through the grime.
He's been here before and the familiar smell of heady, sweet-smelling incense smoke hits him as he presses open the door as stalks inside.
"Come over here." A cool, rattling voice strikes his ears as his keen eyes search out the room for a free body. There are few women in tonight, only about three or four and they're all fully occupied by the attentions of customers into this shadowy chamber.
The woman who called him is lounging indolently on a low couch with twinkling gold brocaded thread near one of the grimy windows, high up and close to the ceiling at ground level, holding a faded silk fan over her mouth. She has long, shining dark hair cut with her bangs just barely revealing finely plucked eyebrows. As he approaches her, he sees pale eyes of a color indeterminate in the dim light scrutinize him unfathomably. There's an opaque veil over her eyes to prevent anyone from prying too deeply.
"Are you new?" He asks brusquely, exposing long, sharp teeth in a hungry smile. That usually gets a reaction, he's noticed, and is disgruntled and grudgingly impressed when she doesn't react in any way to the sight of his glistening teeth.
She doesn't so much as get up, just stares up at him with her fan still resting over her mouth. "No," she murmurs, "I've been here a few months."
How long she's been here, how long she's been saturated in the familiar pungent incense matters nothing to him, or at least it shouldn't. But he's curious, curious by nature and made curious by her; her inscrutable eyes hold some fascination. "So what changed?"
The woman's eyes don't even flicker; the pale lavender cloth swathing her body rustles slightly as she shifts her weight, trying to find a more comfortable position in which to lounge on the couch. "I used to be a geisha," she murmurs, voice neutral and face, what's visible of it, utterly unreadable, "and now look at me."
A young girl laughs nervously from the other side of the room. The girl's voice is high and shrill and strained and noticeably agitated, a trammeled thing. He ignores the unwelcome sound, though the woman sitting on the couch in front of him does turn her eyes in that direction, eyebrows rising clinically. "Fortune no longer favors you?" the tall man asks sardonically.
She shakes her head, eyes falling shut momentarily. "Fortune favors none of us. We simply take what we can get, and leave the rest alone." Her eyes flick to the window above them, surveying the grime incuriously, as if trying to pick out a particular speck of dirt.
"Why not take it all?" He is mockingly challenging, eyeing her up and down now, less patient. Curiosity's bounds and abilities to be patient only go so far.
"Why indeed."
Her lithe, sinuous body reeks of perfume as she slides to her feet in one fluid motion like a snake coiling and lifting its head from the sand; the lavender cloth swishes close around her tight waist and long legs. Eyes are made amber by the lamp light as they survey his face; mouth is still hidden by a faded silk fan, and she is silhouetted by what little light can get through the grime of the window. Every movement is lazily graceful, dark hair falling like a veil over her slender shoulders.
"You'll do," she murmurs, inscrutable, enigmatic, Sphinx-like. "Follow me, please."