How long have you been aware of me?

Since you were in your mother's womb.

She was the prettiest, bravest and kindest girl in Soul Society and she had a demon growing inside her womb.

He can remember the cold and the hunger and the utter despair and he can remember that he was lost. Until she found him. With a welcoming smile as bright as the sun and a chunk of stale bread that tasted better than stale bread had any right to taste, she gathered him in her arms and took him home. She was too young to be his mother but older sister fit perfectly and Shinji loved her more than anything in the world. Loved her like he hated the cruel demon growing stronger inside of her every day, as she in turn grew weaker.

She was quite the commodity in the Soul Society, being a young pregnant girl which was unheard of in their new environment. But, she confided in him one evening, she'd arrived here with the thing already inside of her. Carried over from her past life. She worried every day about the demon, the baby she called it. About its health and how she was going to raise it and on and on and on...

It made Shinji furious.

Because she must have known, she must have known what it was doing to her, how it was sucking the life from her until she became nothing but a shell. Soon she'd be dust in the wind and it would be a fat and happy gurgling thing and he couldn't do a thing about it. What could he do? He was a child and for as much as she loved him, she loved it more. So his warnings, his pleadings, his sobs- they all fell on deaf ears. And so she died.

She died with a smile on her face. Such a waste of a young soul.

The demon was born with brown hair like its mother and dark eyes that came from Shinji didn't even know where. The pits of hell perhaps. If he still believed in such a place. He watched the baby cry with a scowl fixed on his young features. It was a murderer, less than an hour old and it had blood on its hands, blood all over it in fact. He looked determinedly away from the de- the baby because as much as he hated it, that was what it- what he was. A baby, a screaming brat. He looked away and stared at his dead sister who had cared for him when no one else would, before abandoning him so quickly it stung. All in the space of a few months. He never thought he could feel such despair as he had out there, alone in the cold. But he was wrong. He felt it now and he felt it now stronger than ever before.

The baby stopped screaming and made a sound that, if he didn't know any better, was a childish laugh. Shinji's gaze whipped back to him and he titled his head. There, again. His gaze narrowed and he strode over to the baby, towered over it. The baby blinked up at him innocently. Too innocently.

"I'll never forgive you for what you did to her. I hate you."

Shinji was surprised at the amount of true venom that tinged his words. Surprised but not disgusted. He'd meant every word and absurdly, the baby had understood. It started to cry and if the circumstances were different, Shinji may have felt ashamed of himself. Instead he only felt a cruel satisfaction.

Time moved on and people forgot about the pregnant girl who had died birthing a monster.

After that night, the night where he'd lost everything, Shinji had left the baby on the doorstep of some poor sod (Because despite everything, he found he wasn't quite cruel enough to leave the thing crying and alone in a shack. Although perhaps things would have been better if he had.) and left the district he'd first called his home in hopes of a better life. In the end, after many years wandering- he finally enrolled at the shinigami academy and through that, he became a soul reaper. Shinji could never give an honest reason as to why he wanted to be a soul reaper, even in his own head.

The first time he saw him he knew there was something off about the boy. He got an uncomfortable prickling sensation at the back of his neck that caused him to pay the sparring student a second glance. He was tall and thin and wore glasses that he kept re-adjusting during the fight. The fight which he was loosing, abysmally. Shinji, momentarily forgetting the off feeling, actually winced when the student facing him delivered a good whack to his shoulder blade, catching him off balance. The boy with the glasses fell and cried out as he connected with the solid earth beneath him.

It was all an act.

That piece of knowledge hit Shinji like a ton of bricks and he stared at the boy, who was now rubbing his side as if he were actually in any pain, as his opponent walked off to find a better challenge. Shinji scoffed but found himself intrigued all the same. What was the boy hiding and more importantly, why?

Shinji watched him from afar for a good number of years and grew more and more intrigued. And more and more suspicious. When the boy, Sosuke Aizen he'd learnt was his name, graduated from the academy he made sure it was his squad Sosuke came to. Shinji had a sneaking suspicion that Aizen knew this from the get go and that made him feel uneasy. Though he never said anything about it, in fact Aizen was somewhat of the perfect squad member.

Efficient, obedient and loyal. But loyal to what exactly, was the real question.

He soon worked his way through the ranks in a way that he'd never done at the academy. Another cause of suspicion. When he was appointed as Shinji's third seat, he took him out into Squad Five's training grounds.

"What, taichou, if I may enquire, are we doing out here?" And polite as hell, Aizen was that too.

"We're going to spar, of course." Shinji said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Aizen blinked once, and readjusted his glasses. Shinji wondered if he really needed those things at all. It wouldn't surprise him if he didn't.

"Of course." Like he'd expected the very answer. Shinji snorted and retrieved two practice swords from the rack, handing one to Aizen, making sure to deliberately brush his fingers over Aizen's in the process. If he wanted an obvious reaction, he was severely disappointed. But obvious wasn't what he was going for and he caught the slight clenching of the jaw, the one he'd come to learn was a sign of Aizen feeling unsure of what to do, how to react. It occurred to Shinji then that maybe he really did spend too much time observing the young man.

"Show me what ya got, Sosuke," he grinned and it was false, of course and it didn't matter because Aizen's expression remained just as passive as it always was.

This time the act was different. Or rather, Shinji didn't allow for it to be the same. He kept pushing and pushing and pushing, not just with physical strength but with taunts too, that he knew Aizen wasn't as impervious to as he liked to act. He didn't want to spar with the act, he wanted the real thing or as close to that as possible. He wanted to know what he was dealing with. Aizen didn't disappoint and for each fraction of a second that he lost his cool, Shinji felt a surge of triumph. Aizen had never looked much like a threat but of course that was what he wanted people to see, now Shinji knew better. Aizen was strong, and fast and Shinji found himself almost evenly matched. Almost. A swing to the shins left Aizen toppling backwards onto the ground. However he made sure to bring Shinji down with him with a quick grab to his captain's coat. They toppled onto the grass together in a tangle of limbs.

"Sneaky bastard." Shinji grunted as he adjusted himself, embarrassingly he realised a moment later, on top of his third seat. He was just about to get up when something caused him to freeze as a feeling of horror crept over him. At some point during the fall Aizen's glasses had fallen off, leaving his eyes bare for the first time Shinji could recall. And in their newfound close proximity Shinji could study them clearly. As he stared into the dark orbs he realised that they were familiar in the worst of ways. Flashes of memory came floating back, of a once pretty girl pale and swollen in death and of a baby's screams, and of those eyes. Those hellish eyes.

Shinji suddenly felt very sick.

"Taichou? Are you alright? What is it?" Aizen frowned and Shinji could have laughed at the absurdly of it. As if he could actually be concerned, as if this monster could feel anything half way decent for anyone. Shinji rolled off of him and shakily got to his feet, ignoring all of his third seat's concern tinged enquires. He walked away in a daze, memories of long ago swimming to the surface of his mind. He began to laugh.

Baby was all grown up.

Watching from afar just wasn't going to cut it now, he needed Aizen close by at all times so as to keep a proper eye on him. He would have preferred to appoint a lieutenant that he could trust wholeheartedly but that was a luxury he just couldn't afford. And of course the bastard just knew what the primary reason for his promotion was because Aizen seemed to just know everything and yet he never said a word about it.

He didn't need to. It was clear as day in every word he spoke and every look he gave Shinji. They were playing a game of cat and mouse and Shinji wasn't all too sure if he was the cat anymore.

If he ever had been in the first place.

They never speak about this night.

Shinji drinks too much as he is lately prone to doing and Sosuke always found himself terribly disorientated when awoken from sleep at a time shy of natural. The moon is full and illuminates everything. It is the only witness. Both are laid bare under its unforgiving light. Some say the moon softens but they do not know the moon. The moon reveals all deeds done at night. And all deeds done at night are rarely done when the sun shines.

Shinji, in his drunken state, reaches out for Aizen and forgets why he ever wanted a distance between them. He forgets at the same time he remembers and his hand falters, fingertips just shy of brushing against Aizen's parted lips.

Shinji is about to let his hand drop, about to stumble out of the room (without an apology because he does not owe Sosuke anything) when Aizen moves forward barely an inch. Now his fingertips do brush his lips and Shinji wants to cry. A tenderness that terrifies and bewilders washes over him.

"I'm sorry."

His voice is barely a whisper and perhaps Aizen doesn't hear him. And perhaps he does. It doesn't matter. He does not know what the apology is for. Shinji is not all too sure himself what it is for either. (Later he tried not to think that he was apologizing for abandoning a lonely child but the toughest person to fool, is always yourself.)

The kiss is nothing more than a brush of two still mouths, a shared breath and surrender from both sides. They leave their souls bared to one another now and they trust, just for this one single night.

There is no act now, there is no hiding and yet all of it is still a lie.