Hello my lovely readers.
If I have any. I'M BACK Y'ALL. After my like, what, ten year writers block? How're you, how's tricks yo? holla back to yo gurrrrl. Except not lolol jk. Uh, I guess I'm being a little weird, so on with the chapter! PLEASE read the AN at the end! Thanks~ Also, this IS GrimmxOC, so yeah.
I can hear Mercedes' footsteps on the carpet, the brusque, yet still timid knock on my door. I consider not responding, maybe she'll think I'm sleeping, and leave. Maybe she'll think I'm dead. I imagine her standing there, impatiently, about to kick down my door, and the image of her standing there, actually caring about me, after her confrontation with Yammy, makes me feel like an asshole. Or, well, more of an asshole than I usually am.
"Come in." I finally say.
The door swings open, and she stands there. A dark shadow blocking the white light from the hall.
She closes the door, and leans against it. I can't see much of her, but I can at least see that her face is slightly puffy.
"What's up?" I croak.
She leans there for a few more minutes, but then, finally the dark outline of her body finally shrugs its shoulders.
"Mercedes, I can't even see you."
She walks to my bed like a jumpy cat sniffing a new person's hand, like she's waiting for the slightest movement to make her run away and hide. I've never seen her like this. Not ever. She sits on the edge of the bed, her body rigid, tensed like she's waiting for something to attack her. I don't say anything, just look at her haggard, pale face and wonder how someone can look so terrible.
"I have to tell you something." She says, barely audible.
"What?" I reply, letting the sharp edge of irritation creep into my voice.
"I, ah—"
"Spit it out."
"I told Aizen about, ah, what we did."
"Why."
I would normally feel something now, anger, hate, fear, but I don't. There is only the numbness I have created and cultivated over the past few days. It starts with a thud, a soft boom at the bottom of my chest, and spreads through my body, anchoring to my brain with black sponge. It is a numbness that allows me to wonder, "Should I be scared?" but it is only a thought, not a feeling, not real fear. It is a soft skeleton of the fear in which I was born. Porous, dissolving, lifeless.
"But he didn't actually know anything. You know he didn't." I growl. "You could've made something up. You could've told him to go fuck himself." The numbness should be dissolving now. Little sparks of anger and fear should be breaking through the black cloud, and sizzling it away. But the most I feel are little tingles of something unspecific. I'm thinking that there are fare worse secrets than this.
"Why would you tell him that?" I say. I'm sitting up now, glaring. Half mad, half scared for the both of us. Somewhere inside, I know this is something worthy of movement. My body makes me pay attention when all I want to do is go back to sleep. This is the most elevated I've been since my fight with Kurosaki, and it's exhausting.
She looks away, jaw set, and slowly unties the black sash from her narrow waist, tossing the useless price of fabric onto the floor. I don't know what she's doing at first, but I'm suddenly paying attention as she peels the white robe from her side. The sight of her bare body would normally drive me wild- make me roughly pull her down next to me in bed, kissing and touching her hungrily, and all the while, she'd be raking her nails down my back, or grinding her hips into mine, shamelessly begging for more. But not today. Not like this.
At first, I see a shadow. A blue-black shadow on ribs and side and stomach. But the shadow becomes liquid, a lake of blood under the surface of her firm, creamy skin, pain turned into pigment. Then it is solid, bruised flesh stretched over bamboo hard bones. If I were still myself, I'd have just given her a look like, Okay, and what the hell do you want me to do about it, stupid bitch? But the thing is, I'm not myself. Haven't been for the last few days.
"God, Mercedes," I say. She doesn't move.
"Did Aizen do that?" I say. She still doesn't move, but her eyes betray the answer. Yammy. And for some strange reason I need to touch her. I lean over, and put my hand on her ribs. She flinches, and then slowly relaxes as I let my hand curl around the thin bend of her body. My fingers fest in the warm valleys between her ribs. If she had a heartbeat, I'd probably be able to feel it. I can smell the shampoo in her still-wet hair, and the traces of toothpaste on her breath.
"Aizen didn't do anything. Yammy beat it out of me. He would've done more. But I couldn't take it. You know I can't take it. I'm weak, and I'm pathetic. And I'm sorry." She said.
"He can't…" I say, but both of us know that's not true. Aizen can make anyone do whatever he wants.
"Are you mad?" She says.
"No."
"You're a bad liar, Grimmjow." She says, barely audible.
"Like you're one to talk. Come here." I say. "Lie down." Mercedes runs a hand through her red hair and takes a shaky breath. She turns her back to me and lowers her body slowly, like every inch of movement hurts her. I put my arms around her, and pull her close. I absorb her warmth through every part of us that touches. She passes through my clothes, and into my pores, into my skin and muscles and bones. She pushes out all the numbness until all I can feel is warm, and full of her. It's the closest, most tender we've ever been.
"You okay?" I mumble into the top of her head, cringing at the stupidity and sensitivity of my question, as I run my fingers over the mask fragments that lay over her spine.
"Yeah."
"You're not a good liar."
"Touché." She says. And all of a sudden, I feel something. All of a sudden, I'm pulling her toward me, and I'm breathing in her scent, and I'm closing my eyes, and my nose feels her nose, and my lips feel her lips. And she is soft, and warm like Loly, Menoly, and all the pointless Arrancar bitches I've fucked could never be. For once, we're not at each other's throats, or fucking, or pretending we hate each other, even though we never could. And everything feels perfect for a minute. Or the closest to perfect that we've ever been. She is not beaten, hated and shunned, and I am not filthy and weak and afraid to face anyone else, and deep down, deep, deep, deep down, I know that this is all my fault. But in this moment with her, there is no Seireitei, and there are no Shinigami, and there are no pointless battles that I once thought defined life for me. If we could, I would stay here forever, our arms holding on so tight we fuse together and become the same person, our arms holding on because we know as soon as we let go, the nightmare comes back.
Wow, uh. Thanks for reading guys. I know, it was a little eeeeh here and there, but hopefully it wasn't too shit, after...not writing for a while. Please feel free to leave a review if you liked it, hated it, or if you would like an actual full story about these two! Also, if she's Mary Sue, or underdeveloped, PLEASE LET ME KNOW. THAT'S LIKE, ONE OF MY BIGGEST FEARS.
-Dani :-)