Title: Hysteria
Warning: Language, non-descript sexual content.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Authorial Notice:
To my dear friend Grimmdestruction who kicks ass, but was too busy to take names. And I'm not familiar with the intricacies of hollow making, so when you read over that part, squint.
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"I will show you fear in a handful of dust."
― T.S. Eliot, The Burial of the Dead
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Once there was life. Then there was death. Now, there is nothing.
-o-
A good deed doesn't go unpunished. He heard someone say that once. He didn't think much of it at the time, but now he figures someone knew what they were talking about.
Maybe that's what Aizen wanted them to learn.
Grimmjow was never particularly good at doing good, but his deeds turn on him all the same. One more stab to a desiccated heart. One more slash to his hemorrhaging pride. A lot of trouble just to chase something he wasn't meant to have.
But then he also heard the wicked were supposed to reap what they sow, and they were right about that too. Kurosaki was the one to teach him that. Now, he's not even very good at doing bad deeds.
And he's not good at waiting, and he's not good at doubting himself either, but when the moon hangs over the scattered sand and there's no one in any direction as far as he can see, Grimmjow wonders why he ever bothered doing anything at all.
-o-
Love, he thinks, must be a fucking brutal emotion.
A sleeping curse. A wound waiting to happen.
The war isn't even his, but he fights it anyway. Not for the shinigami or their king. Not for their laws or the greater good— whatever the fuck that even means. And not for any of his kind either. When he fights, he fights for himself. That's what he keeps saying. Repeating it over and over until it's embedded so deep into his thoughts he can't remember when he started putting it there.
The supposed death gods turn out to be nothing more than a lie. A name without form. Paper flesh stretched over porcelain bones. Walking corpses. That's what they look like to him. And as they march, he feels like he can see the future through the past. They're already dead. All of them, they just haven't realized it yet. Pretending to be brave and strong, they fall where they stand under an attack that doesn't even ruffled his hair. And he's disgusted by the number of dead. Or maybe they're just more dead now. He doesn't know and doesn't care. His lip curls anyway.
This was what the hollows had been told to fear?
Pathetic.
So many of them, lifeless and frozen under the unmoving sky.
The battlefield is a fractured line of corpses. It stretches as far as he can see. And they all looked so surprised to be dead, he thinks he should laugh.
He doesn't.
The world is standing still. And even he doesn't dare disturb it.
-o-
Kurosaki is pathetic as well when Grimmjow finds him. All that time spent chasing, wasted.
Crimson's leaking from his mouth and body. He's too broken to move, but still straining. Pathetic. Absolutely fucking pathetic to watch when he tries so hard and fails anyway. He'd told him. Back before it started. Bastard should've cut his loses. Should've known not to bother. Should've never attempted to change the unchangeable.
He really is pitiful. Those friends of his were dead before he'd ever arrived.
Grimmjow's foot stops by the fragment of a sword. Blood is everywhere. It's all he can see and smell and breathe.
Heartbreak, that's what Kurosaki fought so hard for.
He must've won.
-o-
Pity is the deadliest emotion he's ever seen. It strikes without warning. Makes a smart person dumb. It cripples the mind and breaks him down like a simple weapon never could.
It's the same lethal tug that moves his hand. Something he would've said he didn't have. Or maybe he moves for the half-formed memory of the black blade that could've taken his life once, but didn't. Looking down, he's only aware that each strange impulse comes easier than the last.
He leans over. Just a flick of his wrist, a deep breath and a pulse of reiatsu, and it's done.
The boy comes back.
In a way.
-o-
For hollows, the passage of time is difficult to mark, but he thinks it hasn't even been a year when he sees him again. Not even a year when Kurosaki Ichigo begs to die.
Huddled down, he looks even more pathetic than Grimmjow remembers.
"I… I can't stand it. There's so much blood on me," he says.
There are still tears on his face and crimson on his mouth, but this time the blood isn't his. The shattered slivers of a mask lay half-buried in the sand beneath him.
Grimmjow watches him for a long moment.
Once, he told him he hated the look in his eyes, but he's sure that was wrong now. This is what he hates. This weakness. As if he would crumble on the breeze and blow away with the wind.
"If ya don't deserve to live, then do it yourself. You've got a zanpakutō."
Kurosaki doesn't bother to point out he's more hollow than shinigami now. Grimmjow doesn't either. He figures neither of them really knows what he is anymore. Maybe they never did.
"I can't!" There is nothing but trembling resentment trapped behind an amber gaze.
The boy that shook the foundations of three worlds clinches the dust in his fists.
In the darkness, Grimmjow waits.
"I can't."
His orange head hangs, as if someone has cut the strings that hold him up, and Grimmjow imagines he could put a name to each one if he'd ever bothered to learn any of Kurosaki's friends from the other.
"They all… Too many people died to save me."
Blue eyes narrow.
The memory of the battle never finished comes easily. Far too much was never finished, but mourning the life he can't return to, the boy isn't ready to face him.
Grimmjow turns and walks away.
-o-
It is another long night under a stagnant moon before he sees him again. Across pale sand, Grimmjow has fought and won so many times he can no longer tell his kills apart.
This time though, Kurosaki is quiet, composed, and Grimmjow wonders if the trembling pleas for an end were only a dream.
"You stole my death from me."
Gold eyes gleam from under orange bangs. They shine with a light that doesn't reflect from anything around them. For second, Grimmjow doesn't know who he's looking at, but the feeling fades, trailing like a cold barb down his spine, and is gone.
"This is hell." The boy is shaking now, one hand clutching his chest. No, not his chest. A hole. He's clutching at the memory of his heart.
Pity. It's closer this time. Grimmjow's hand finds his sword, but falls away again as he sneers.
They all bear the weight of being empty.
"Do it yourself," he says.
When Kurosaki only glowers back, he turns and walks away.
-o-
He finds a hollow.
Half dead, it wails as he approaches, a distorted reverberation. It raves about an orange-haired demon that journeys their wasteland.
The sounds end with a sweep of Grimmjow's claws.
-o-
"Why did you do this to me?" he asks, when they've circled each other around the emptiness too many times to count, and the corpses they've left behind are too many to count.
His hair has grown longer. It floats around him on a breeze that isn't there.
Grimmjow thinks he looks more like the man he was never meant to be.
"Answer me!" cries the hollow that was a shinigami that was a boy he once saved.
He reminds Grimmjow of all of the foes he's slain and eaten.
If Kurosaki's right, and the blood of those he killed is on his hands, what remains of the one he saved? And surely Kurosaki himself saved more lives than he ever took, but he seems just as lost and broken and empty.
It wasn't worth it, Grimmjow decides. It's harder, he realizes, to give a life than to take it. Defeated enemies have no breath with which to question.
Maybe that's why the boy that saved three worlds looks so tired.
"Who said I did it for you?"
There's a long silence as Ichigo regards him.
"They're my friends, my family, and I hate them. I hate that they're alive and I'm not. But I hate the ones that are dead even more," he finally whispers. "Almost as much as I hate you."
Grimmjow laughs.
"Shut up!" Ichigo's hands are in his hair, covering his ears as if it will block the sound before he snarls. "Shut up! Do you like torturing me? Is this some sort of sick joke to you?"
It is a sick joke. All of it just as sick as the hell he claimed they were in.
Kurosaki would probably laugh too if he knew what Grimmjow knows. And that's that pity is a pitiless emotion.
So is guilt.
Fuckin' hilarious.
He shakes his head. The humorless smirk still pulls at his lips as he continues on his path.
Kurosaki still isn't ready. Kurosaki, he thinks, is in love with his own pain.
And love is a pitiless emotion too.
"Come back here!" he shrieks. "Come back!"
He's gotten stronger. There's so much power swirling around him, Grimmjow can feel it beating at his back. Kurosaki could catch him if he wanted, but he doesn't, so Grimmjow keeps walking.
"Don't worry, shinigami. We're not finished. Not even close."
Grimmjow walks until the screams dissolve into the space between them.
-o-
There are bodies on the plains. The forests are empty and quiet.
More and more Grimmjow finds them, strewn carelessly across the distance. Sometimes eaten, sometimes not, and he wonders.
-o-
They've been avoiding one another. But it couldn't last forever.
"Kill me," he says. "My life is yours anyway."
His voice carries like the dull roar of a storm over the ocean of the world. Thunder without rain, because there is no rain in this place, and he already cried all his tears long ago. The sound flows like blood. Like death and vengeance.
He is pale skin and hair, and golden eyes that cut through the darkness.
Fine hair rises on the back of Grimmjow's neck.
He tries to remember the last time he feared someone.
He can't. A lifetime of pain is a long time. And theirs is longer than a lifetime.
Maybe he owes him something after all. But Grimmjow was never very good at doing good deeds, or bad ones even. So he studies the creature that was once Kurosaki. He doesn't like how still it is when it watches him back.
"Why should I?" Grimmjow asks.
Startled, the boy stares at him, mouth parting in shock. It's the first time Grimmjow's shown that he might care one way or the other about his fate.
Grimmjow watches the shift, sees colorless skin darken. Colorless hair darken. Kurosaki looks more like he used to now. More like the boy.
"You have to, you did this to me." Mutely, he works his lips, swallows and tries again, looking almost human, which Grimmjow finds amusing since he was never very human at all. "I don't think anyone else is strong enough anymore."
"Hn."
The wind picks up, but it touches only the space around them. A circle of dust and debris floating in an ever expanding void.
Blue eyes never waiver. "No."
Silence.
His back hits the ground as he registers the hands gripping his clothes. Sharp teeth snap a scant breath from his throat.
Sand sprays and falls, and Grimmjow can't free himself from grasping, black claws.
"You bastard!" the hollow screams. "You fucking bastard!"
The hands fisting his jacket, jerk him up, shaking him before dropping him back to the dirt.
The hollow's words are low and quivering with rage, hissed into the wind. "I'm going to make you regret this."
Kurosaki turns his feet and stumbles away, so furious he can't see straight. Grimmjow lays still and gazes at the sky. He doesn't bother to tell him he's already succeeded.
And in the moonlight, he smiles, because regret is a ruthless emotion.
So is guilt.
So is love.
So is pity.
It chases them both down without mercy.
-o-
He hasn't even crossed out of the lowlands, before he finds the first of them.
Another hollow defeated, bleeding out on the sand. In its left leg is one of the skeletal trees that dot the horizon, sharpened and thrust through muscle and bone. Pinned down and bowed back, the hollow is stretched out like an offering.
It's the only one he's encountered this way, and he's uncertain what to make of Kurosaki's newest diversion.
It stretches out an arm. "Please... Espada-sama. Hurry. Eat. If something weaker comes along, I-I don't want to die that way."
He wants to say he's not an espada anymore. That all those pointless titles ended with Aizen, and all his fucked up plans, but he doesn't. Something shifts in his memory. The echoes of a boy begging for death under a starless sky.
There is a bitter taste in his mouth and he almost leaves.
All of them carry the weight of their emptiness. With every hollow he takes into himself, he becomes that much less. But as he stands, watching the reaching arm fall back toward the ground, Grimmjow frowns.
He hesitates only a moment, wondering at the urge that comes so easily now.
The pity he shouldn't have wells up, pours out, and he's already moving forward.
-o-
And then there is another. And another. And another.
It's surprising how long it takes him to realize what's happening. To realize what's been done.
But the hollow that was once Kurosaki is a clever and merciless opponent.
Grimmjow can feel the new power flowing under his skin. Knows that all the searching Kurosaki did to find something formidable enough to kill him was the same thing that insured he'd be too strong to die. And now, maybe Grimmjow is too.
He wants to run. He wants to, but it's too late. Too late to retreat. Too late to save himself. Too late to save them both. From the very first encounter, all those years ago over the rooftops of that human city, the battle was already lost.
-o-
It's too late to run, but that doesn't stop him trying.
The stories of his power spread. They fan out around him, circling back, twisting and knotting, closing in on him from every side.
He never wanted to be anyone's savior. Not Kurosaki's. Not these hollows. He'd just been moving on instinct. He can't figure out where that went wrong.
"Espada-sama, please help me..."
"Espada-sama, please take my power."
"Espada-sama, I have little time left…"
"Espada-sama let us be part of you…"
Espada-sama… Espada-sama… Espada-sama…
He wants to scream. He wants to tear his hair out. He wants to rage until there's nothing left in the whole of the godforsaken world.
But still they find him.
He runs as far as he can. Past the empty forests and the ruined palace. Past the never-ending sands. He runs until there is nowhere left to run to. He runs until he swears he can taste the end of everything.
And that's when Kurosaki finds him. Just like Grimmjow knew he would.
-o-
Each time he sees what the boy has become, it shakes him a little more than the last. One day, Kurosaki will shake him until he falls apart. And he wants that. Wants to fall into pieces, get away, end.
How long has it been this time?
"I told you." he says. The hollow that was Kurosaki smiles brighter than a blade. Shakes his head. "Should've killed me when ya could."
He's right.
Grimmjow knows he'll never be rid of him now. Never be free again. Never be lost, cold, alone.
Something he cannot destroy.
It's an unfamiliar concept.
Gone now is his cocky demeanor, his slick bravado. Kurosaki tends to do that. Tends to strip him away until he has no barriers left. Until he's naked. Exposed to the bone and laid bare.
Those eyes see all of him.
"It's time to end this," he says.
And he's right about that too.
-o-
When Kurosaki moves, it's like nothing he's ever seen. Each moment is fear and fury. Each moment is trapped forever inside the twisted net of his memory.
Grimmjow's so caught up just watching, that he can't react at first. It doesn't matter. It's all so far beyond his grasp now, has as much chance of stopping it as he has to reach out and touch the moon.
Kurosaki is like the moon. Cold and unforgiving. He is all shining, crescent smiles and a sky of flickering, vacant hearts. Grimmjow thinks if he could reach out and touch him, he would slip through his fingers like air. Burn him like fire, and roll over him like the tide.
This time, he will be the one devoured, and he craves it. Wants it like he's never wanted anything.
-o-
If any of the shinigami were left, they could see them. Pick them up on radar. All those fucking scans and tests that never ended up doing any of them any good. They'd become strong. Strange that he felt like he finally knew what that meant. As if he'd only just realized it.
But if any of the shinigami were left, no one was brave enough to do anything about them.
They are alone here. Unable to stray from their fate, they tread the endless, circling road, chasing shadows into the dark places inside themselves, and back out again.
An endless eternity of striving and struggling.
Chained together, they always reach the other side, no matter how desperately they try to drown.
-o-
And then it's over.
The cutting edge of a sword is at his throat. Kurosaki perched atop his chest, drawing deep breaths. Grimmjow searches, but he can't find any trace of triumph in his face. But that's fine. He got what he'd always wanted, so he tilts his head back and invites oblivion.
In golden eyes, pity stirs.
A far away memory flares to life. The vision of the boy superimposed over the hollow he is now. If Kurosaki was a boy a hollow once saved, then Grimmjow is a hollow a shinigami once saved.
And now, he knows. They did this to themselves.
Pity is a pitiless emotion.
So is regret.
So is guilt.
So is love.
But he's not laughing anymore.
-o-
They've gone too far.
Running against the other, they didn't mind their path, and now there is no more road.
They clash in a tangle of teeth and tongue, and he can't remember ever feeling so much relief. Half-starved hands slide over bloody skin. Kurosaki is a sickness crawling through his veins, a lethal disease. The scrape of nails, the press of bodies the only cure.
"Save us," he whispers. "End this."
Grimmjow says nothing. It's too late for words. Nothing can save them now, but Kurosaki already knows. Grimmjow can taste it on his skin. In the tears that no longer fall. He drags fingers down a lithe back, gasping as Kurosaki arches into him.
Over and again, they move, struggle, strive, searching for an end.
And he's trying, trying… but there's so little left.
He gathers the last drops of moisture from his hollow, sandpaper heart, and gives the boy back all the tears he's cried. And Kurosaki drinks, a dying man, and passes them back again.
-o-
When the land is once again still, they lay panting and bleeding beneath the shadow of the rocks kicked up from their fighting. They listen to the sound of their entwined destinies, to the sound of fate closing around them. Like a door. Like an iron cage.
They can fling themselves at the bars. They can stretch their arms out and grope at the wind. But there is no escape.
He wonders who won. He decides he doesn't care.
Slick with sweat, Kurosaki sighs. "What have you done to us?"
He wants to ignore it. To stay silent. To keep the words shut behind his teeth, but suddenly he's just so fucking pissed off. It's the first thing he's felt in a long time, though and it's gone so fast. It drains away and he that's fine. It took too much energy to hold anyway.
"Me? You're the one that killed those hollows. Made us fat."
Ichigo scoffs at that.
The first humor in a long time. Maybe the first he'd ever really heard from him, and Grimmjow feels lighter than he was before. Like emerging from deep water. Like he can breathe again.
Kurosaki shifts, sitting up between his legs. He stares at the sky, and in the sky, the moon stares back.
"I can't believe I'm stuck here with you."
Now, it's his turn to scoff. "Why? Ya got somewhere better ta be?"
It's quiet for a long moment.
Kurosaki's voice is soft when he answers, "No."
"Then shut up."
"Tch. You're such an asshole."
"Yeah, but I'm the only asshole within a million miles of ya."
Grimmjow stands as Kurosaki seems to consider that. He's still tired, but the desert is calling, and he feels the need to move.
"Where are you going?" he asks.
Where? He hadn't even thought about it.
"Does it matter?" Grimmjow turns and starts away.
Kurosaki says nothing. He's still watching the sky, gaze calm and steady.
At the edge of their shelter, Grimmjow pauses, looking back over his shoulder. He waits until he snaps. "Well?"
Blinking, Kurosaki tilts his head. "Well what?"
"Ya comin' or not?"
He moves then, raising a pale head from a clawed hand.
And the hollow that was a shinigami that was a boy he once saved smirks, rises, and follows him into the moonlight.
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Fin.
A/N
Thanks for reading. Please leave a review and let me know what you thought :)