A/N: Another Bleach story from me, hope you like it. It's an older one of mine.
"How long is this gonna take Gin?" Aizen asked while Gin parked in front of a small coffee shop.
"Not long, I promise ya!" he said as he manually rolled up the window on his side of the car, "I just want to go over a few things with him, point out a few inconsistencies and then we're done. I promise an hour tops!" Gin got out of the car and headed towards the shop door, and then he turned around and saw Aizen still sitting in the car, so he walked back over.
"Aizen, I don't know if you're aware of this, but the car has stopped." Gin said leaning into Aizen's still open window.
"I know." Aizen replied but still didn't get out of the car. Gin threw him a sideways glance, "Okay here, let's try this again, Aizen…when the car stops… you get out." Gin opened his door and stepped back, waiting on the bigger man to get out. Instead Aizen, reached out and slammed the door closed again.
"Aizen!" Gin shouted.
"Why did I have to come anyway?" Aizen grumbled in the steadily heating up car.
"Because, you're my best friend…" Gin opened the door again and looked at Aizen, already sweating from the heat, "…and I wouldn't want my best friend to die of heat stroke in my car, just imagine the type of images I'll end up thinking about every time I get into the car… you stuck, melted to my passenger seat, skin just oozing down your skeletal face…"Gin gave Aizen an even wider grin as he grumbled and mumbled curses under his breath about gin being cheap and not wanting to turn on the air while he walked into the coffee shop.
##^##^##^##
Byakuya sat in the coffee shop, drawing on a napkin while he waited for his book editor, Gin, to show up. While absorbed in his small doodle of a broken heart, Byakuya failed to the bell chime signaling that someone had just come into the shop.
"BYAKUYA!" Gin plopped down beside Byakuya at his table, causing his coffee to spill a little over the rim and onto the napkin he'd be drawing. "Quit looking all depressed, I've got someone I want you to meet. He should be over here soon, he getting us drinks. Anyway while we wait," Gin pulled out Byakuya's manuscript for his new book, "let me point a few errors that I found."
"That is what I pay you for isn't it?" Byakuya said a little upset about Gin's loud and startling arrival.
Gin laughed, and began flipping through the thick stack of papers, pointing all the errors and asking Byakuya questions as to what he meant.
##^##^##^##
About ten minutes into their discussion Gin stopped talking and looked up, "Finally, here he comes baring gifts of caffeine and sweets." Gin got up and basically pushed Aizen toward Byakuya who had yet to look up from the manuscript.
"What's he doing here!" Aizen said suddenly angry, as he realized who was sitting at the table he was being pushed towards.
"Well he is one of my clients and I do have to do my job," Gin smiled as he continued nudging Aizen along, " but don't act like you don't miss him. Because I know you do, and the sad fact about it is, he misses you to. So in the nicest way possible Aizen, I only have one thing to say. Don't fuck this up."
When they reached the table Gin took his coffee and resumed his position beside Byakuya.
Aizen cleared his throat as he sat down in front of Byakuya, who hadn't even still hadn't bothered to give him a small glance in his direction.
"Hi." He said as Byakuya continued to be engulfed in his story corrections, still ignoring the fact that someone else had sat down. Gin noticed his friends attempt to get the writers attention, so he kicked Byakuya in the shin.
"What the hell?" Byakuya said glaring at Gin, who just nodded in his Aizen's direction. Byakuya rolled his eyes and followed Gin's nod to the man in front of him. He immediately jumped from his seat when he laid eyes upon his ex.
"Aizen!" Byakuya's sudden movement knocked his coffee over onto the thick stack of papers, but he didn't notice. The sight of his ex smiling in front of him, trying to clean up the coffee Byakuya had spilt, had left him breathless and unable to think or speak.
"I'll go get some more towels." Gin said taking Byakuya's accident as a reason to leave them alone. Byakuya had finally snapped back into his former self after Gin had departed from the table. He picked up the dripping manuscript and flung a couple drenched sheets in the air.
Aizen stopped wiping up the dripping coffee and stared at the man obviously trying to avoid his gaze, "Byakuya," he said softly as if he almost didn't believe the man was standing in front of him. Byakuya pretended not to hear his name called in an almost loving tone. He placed the still damp manuscript back on the table, refusing to make any further eye contact with the man he'd once loved. While looking down, he noticed he had a splotch of coffee in the dead center of his shirt and as Aizen intimately whispered his name again, he announced that he had to go to the bathroom.
Aizen watched Byakuya scurry away, and scolded himself, because instead of telling the man how he felt, all he did was whisper Byakuya's name like a mantra. He threw his head into his hands and sighed dejectedly, and then Gin came back over,
"What the hell was that? That sure as hell didn't look like getting back together to me." He said while he wiped up the remainder of the coffee and tried to dry the papers, "You know what that looked like to me, Aizen sitting there- in a chair-, forgetting that for the second time in his life he is about to let the best he ever had, get away from him."
"Shut up." Aizen said in a bitter voice, head still in his hands .
"Funny," Gin went on as he sat back in his seat looking at an altered version of his best friend, "isn't that the exact same thing you said to me when you told me broke up with him."
Aizen dropped his hands and simply sat there looking at Gin with a disoriented look in his eyes, "Are you gonna sit there and stare at me or go do something about this Aizen?"
"I don't know how to tell him what's on my mind." Aizen stated.
"Then say what's on your heart," Gin looked at his watch, "and you better hurry. It only takes so long to try and clean a stain that you know ain't coming out."
##^##^##^##
Byakuya stood over the sink scrubbing at the persistent stain on his shirt, refusing to let his mind wander to the man that waited back at his table. His knuckles had turned red and the paper towel he'd been holding on to was torn to mere shreds between his fingers. As he gathered the shreds from out of the sink and went over to the towel dispenser to get more towels the door to the bathroom swung open.
All Byakuya saw was Aizen's profile, when he whipped himself back over to sink and grabbed his shirt. He wanted to leave out but he couldn't because as he looked in the mirror he saw Aizen standing in front of the door, eyes trained on Byakuya's back. So Byakuya instead went and locked himself into the nearest stall.
Aizen sighed loudly running his fingers through his hair, trying to think of where to begin, he walked over to the sink where Byakuya had been standing, "I'm not sure where to begin with this." he said laughing at himself aloud, his voice sounded harsh in the silent empty bathroom. "I'm sorry is much too late now, and I know you don't wanna hear it, but it's all I can think of to say. I made a mistake, and it took me much too long to figure it out, when it seemed like you and everyone else knew it from the start." Aizen waited for some type of response from the stall before he continued, " so…I'm –"
"Why'd you do it in the first place?" Byakuya questioned from the stall. "If you knew back then it was a mistake then why'd you do it?"
"I didn't know it back then, it took me some time to figure it out." Aizen answered.
"So it took you an entire year and half to figure out that we were a mistake and that at our first and only anniversary dinner was the perfect time to decide to leave me." Byakuya retorted with hatred clear in his voice.
"I said I was sorry!" Aizen had begun to yell.
"You don't have to tell me you're sorry, I already knew that. You always were, you were a sorry lover, and sorry excuse of a boyfriend. And I'm sorry that I ever allowed you into my heart!" Byakuya criticized as he tore open the stall door, rushing pass Aizen to get to the door. Aizen hurriedly grabbed Byakuya's shoulder, gripping it too tightly.
"Ow, you son of a bitch!" Byakuya said turning around slapping Aizen's face, "Don't you ever touch me again! You didn't want anything from me then and you don't want anything now!"
Aizen grabbed him again, this time by hem of the undershirt he had on and pulled a fighting Byakuya towards him ignoring the few punches he did land, and locked Byakuya in his embrace.
"Let me go! Let me go gotdammit!" Byakuya shouted still struggling against the firm embrace and body that was Aizen.
"I already did," Aizen said softly, "and I can't again Byakuya. I love you, and I can't bear to let you go again." Byakuya heard a sniff come from Aizen, and he finally pushed himself off of him.
"Don't cry now! It was your fault to begin with!" Byakuya screamed trying to find the anger he had while he stared into Aizen's tear filled eyes. Aizen walked over to Byakuya and tried to embrace him again, but Byakuya beat him back and Aizen fell to his knees grabbing Byakuya's hand and bringing him down as well, so that they were eye to eye.
"I know it's my fault. I've always known it, I know I messed up but Byakuya, baby…" Here Aizen brought Bykuya's down casted face up to his. Though they were now face to face, Byakuya could not make his eyes connect with the dull brown ones in front of him; he could not look into the eyes of his former lover and deny the fact that he still loved him. Despite the cruel manner that Aizen had broken it off with him; as he forced his gaze towards the ground, new tears had begun to fall.
"Byakuya, look at me," Aizen had taken to wiping the fresh tears off Byakuya's face with his thumb as he whispered; "You can't act like we didn't happen. You can't act like none of this ever existed."
"Why not? You did." Byakuya said weakly still sitting on the bathroom floor with Aizen. Aizen bit his lip fighting the pain in his chest at the unpleasant truth.
"Do you still love me?" Aizen simply said still holding on to Byakuya's wrist.
Byakuya found a spot on the wall behind Aizen and coldly replied no.
Aizen brought Byakuya's face closer to his and asked, "Can you look me in the eyes and honestly say that you don't love me?"
Byakuya could avoid it no longer, he shut his eyes and did what his heart had be screaming at him to do since Aizen had walked into the bathroom. He kissed Aizen good and long, afraid that if his lips ever left Aizen's it would wind up being just another dream. He wrapped his arms around Aizen's neck and cried, "I never stopped loving you Aizen, I never stopped!"
Aizen hugged him back but couldn't think of anything to say, so instead he gently pulled Byakuya from around his neck and kissed him, savoring the salty sweet taste of Byakuya's tears and his own.
##^##^##
Gin had been standing at bathroom door the entire time listening to the newly rejoined couple argue and make up. As much as he wanted happiness for his best friend, he also knew that in deepest, darkest part of his heart that he wanted Aizen for himself and always would. Yet, being the friend that he was Gin, pushed all jealously aside and let love run its own course, if that meant being a martyr for love for the happiness of his best friend. Then so be it, because part of loving is learning to let go.