A/N: Part 3 of the 'Speechless' series. I might end up writing another part at some point, looks like I'm having quite a bit of fun with these. :)

The Collar

"Hey!"

Toushiro's ears perked up momentary at the call, but as soon as his mind supplied the name of the speaker, his attention sank back into the frayed book he was holding and he mutely carried on walking down the corridor.

"Hey! Gin's whore!"

A single muscle twitched under the former captain's eye – the only giveaway he allowed himself for the pang of anger that coiled like a greasy, seething liquid in his stomach. Again, a little voice snarled from the back of his mind but he quelled it immediately, forbidding himself from becoming a victim of his own temper. He should've known better by now not to get affected by what they called him - after all, foul language was a must whenever he was involved, and the abuse wasn't going to go away any time soon. It came with what he'd become over time: an object, a favourite animal, a toy, and now that these monsters could only hurt him verbally, they were, naturally, making the most of it. If he so much as stuck his nose out of his room, he was bound to be swallowed by the scorn and contempt waiting at every corner. And the other things… The leers, hanging from one too many smirking mouths, from dozens of slimy, dripping tongues, and emphasized by the constantly hungry, yet disgusted eyes that had made Toushiro their private perverse show of sadism. Humiliating the captive was routine: when it wasn't 'whore', it was 'bitch', and when it failed both, it had to be 'slut' or something equally degrading. It was that simple. No need to sweat it. In fact, through the length of all these months, Toushiro's name and title had got lost and upfront came these insults – each of them attached to a sound or word which stressed on his belonging to a certain silver-haired traitor, making that particular man the gist of each insult, the prime source and endpoint which was derived by the sneers' meaning. As a prisoner, Toushiro probably couldn't expect anything better - though that didn't mean existing got any easier.

Presently, he had the pleasure of hearing a few more things from the other end of the corridor as the familiar, insolent voice languidly caught up with him, coming closer and closer like a vulture spiraling towards its meal. Goddammit. Ignoring the bastard was becoming harder by the second, and here Toushiro thought he might slip out of this one without a confrontation.

Get lost already!

The letters before the boy's eyes zoomed and then narrowed, in and out of focus, as their message dripped down the pages and left the white blankness of irritation in their wake. Many a time, when he'd tried this trick on Ichimaru, the older man had merely laughed his efforts off, claiming Toushiro was staring much too intently at the paper to be actually reading it. But that didn't mean the former captain would stop trying. Over time he'd grown to utilize the few overused novels Gin brought him as a weapon – a shelter, a shield – against the constant abuse which followed him around Hueco Mundo's halls. Being treated like Gin's pet never seemed to get old – though, in a curious and inexplicable fashion, there was always a certain nuance of jealousy; a sickly taste of envy that trailed after each catcall, each jest and sneer that Hitsugaya stoically had to endure on a daily basis. In a way, being Ichimaru's property made him untouchable. And nothing in Hueco Mundo was meant to stay unshared, least of all spoils of war.

Well, so long as it came to things that didn't specifically belong to Aizen's right hand, that is.

"I'm talking to you, bitch," the hand that grabbed Toushiro's shoulder was appropriately rough, shoving him into the wall and pinning him there with about as much effort as it would require had the victim been a ragdoll. Toushiro didn't even wince, only grimacing slightly when Grimmjow snatched the book from his hands and made a show of throwing it carelessly to the side. "That got yer attention, eh?" Peak of intelligence in that line. "The fuck made you think you can ignore me?!"

Do you want a list or a table with content?

"Sorry," Toushiro said in a dry, unapologetic deadpan. "Did you say anything to me? Surely you can't have. I didn't hear anyone address me-"

Slap.

Toushiro flexed his facial muscles against the burn, then slowly turned his head back towards the feral grin of the sixth Espada. The stroke wasn't nearly as hard as Grimmjow would've probably preferred it to be, but he had no real choice in the matter; not unless he wanted to get Ichimaru involved in the mess, and last time anything of the sort had actually occurred, the consequences had been gruesome to say the least. Perhaps it was just Gin marking his territory – no one touches what's mine – or him looking for an excuse to get rid of those who'd jarred him from the very start, but somewhere in the back of his mind, Toushiro could still remember the scene ensuing a mere half a dozen of superficial bruises that the boy had suffered. It had to be phenomenal how the killing of a single being, the hacking, the mutilation, the crushing of only one creature's body, could be horrific enough to resemble a massacre.

Ichimaru sure was a talented murderer.

"Ouch," Toushiro muttered with a theatrical arch of his brow as he lifted a hand to brush against the reddening patch of flesh on his cheekbone. He glanced down at his fingertips, almost as though expecting to see blood or some other incriminating evidence of stroke, but of course, there was nothing. The gesture was more for the other's benefit than his own anyway: thin line to cross there, jackass. "Painful. Wanna do that again?"

Grimmjow's eyes darkened and for a moment there he looked very tempted to do so, until the pressure of common sense (and perhaps some unadmitted fear?) overruled his impulses and he chuckled, extending one finger to flicker at the leather collar fastened tightly around Toushiro's neck.

"What are you going to do? Run off to yer precious master to rat me out?" he teased, to which Toushiro didn't even frown. Cliché. Grimmjow never came up with anything new – too much mental effort, and too easy to rile up to have the time to be inventive – though that was not to say Hitsugaya was entirely immune to such treatment.

"I wouldn't really have to," Toushiro pointed out softly and the sides of Grimmjow's grin visibly wilted.

"Your Ichimaru won't always be around, you know?"

"Sure."

"Little fucker. How long do you think you're going to survive without him and with sealed spiritual pressure?"

Toushiro's eyes narrowed slightly at that comment, his insides going cold with fury. It was one thing keeping him like a dog, but severing his relationship with Hyourinmaru had been an atrocity beyond description. A creature disconnected, stripped of a part of its soul - literally an abomination - that was what he'd become, listening to nothing but the silence in his head, the hollowness in his chest. It had been so long since he'd last spoken to the dragon that at times he'd catch himself trying to recall – straining to remember – the exact timbre of the once inseparable, booming voice within his head.

In the first few months they'd tried experimenting on him – Szayel, grinning happy as he was given permission to do so, had prodded him, examined him and injected him with all sorts of crap to see what could be used as a weapon against Soul Society (and, as Toushiro suspected, for his own entertainment). The crazy psychopath had failed time and again, of course, coming short of obtaining anything simple and efficient enough to be used in battle, though the fiascos never discouraged him and the continuous setbacks all but fuelled his obvious affinity for sadism. He'd kept trying for quite a while, with the glee of a child who was fascinated by the prospect of how far he could go before the fly he was torturing finally exhaled its last breath, and he'd kept persisting even when his subject had lost a fifth of his weight and started falling victim to dizzy spells several times a day, without exception. That was when Ichimaru had got fairly fed up. Toushiro didn't quite understand why, but the older man had expressed a profound dislike in the whole adventure to begin with and once his pet was reduced to puking his guts out every other hour, Ichimaru had promptly put an end to it all.

Though the regular sessions at the lab were still unavoidable. The procedure Toushiro had to be put through to keep his spiritual pressure under control was long and, to put it gently, unpleasant. What was more unsettling was that with time, Toushiro's body seemed to be growing progressively more and more immune to the treatment, meaning he had to bear it more frequently, rendering him deadly weak at best and unconscious at worst every time he was released from the lab.

Curious what they'd do to him once his body no longer responded like they wanted it to…

"So anyway," Toushiro said, pouring some fake brightness into his voice. "Did you want me to help you with your homework or something?"

"Shut up," Grimmjow growled and his hand moved to the boy's throat, a large, rough thumb landing on Toushiro's lips as the remaining fingers dug into the captive's hair "You really got some spunk. Did ya forget how we welcomed you here the first day, or did you enjoy that too much to realize in what way it could've ended?"

How it surely would've, if not for Ichimaru.

Toushiro refused to respond, his brows knitting together as he glared daggers at the espada. For a long moment, there was just silence, then Grimmjow's smirk widened into a thin, dangerous caricature of a grin and suddenly his body was literally flush against Toushiro's, crushing him into the wall.

"What the-" his indignant exclamation turned into a surprised, gaging sound, the boy tried to push against the taller man's chest, only to have his hand pinned beside his head while Grimmjow's thumb pressed through his lips and onto his tongue. What was this? Was it a joke? Was it a threat? There was something so vulgar and twisted in the touch that it seemed to turn the blood in Toushiro's veins to slush, paralyzing his muscles as the feeling of helplessness and violation which he'd struggled to bury at the bottom of his heart now sprang mercilessly to the surface.

"You know I never got my turn," Grimmjow noticed, quite amiably as he pressed down on the catpive's lower teeth, forcing his mouth open with the help of an index finger. "I bet you'd suck me off real nice and you'd love it, too. Now that Gin's had a go at you, I really do wonder how you've kept such lousy manners. Didn't he teach you to behave properly in the presence of authority?"

The fingers were gone as suddenly as they'd pushed in, but now Toushiro could feel something else against his thigh and it rendered him just as numb and incapable of reasonable thought as the taste of salt and skin against his lips. Grimmjow was starting to get hard.

"Back off," Toushiro hissed, but his voice quivered, sounding pathetic, unconvincing, weak. Grimmjow's breath was on his face, the smell of a killer, someone who fed on pain and suffering. "Get away from me right now!"

Who was he kidding? Even if he screamed, chances were it would only elicit laughter. Grimmjow's nose nuzzled the outer line of his jaw and ear, drinking his scent in large gulps like an addict, getting high on his cheap party drug. The façade of intimacy was grotesque – a travesty of a loving gesture, and it made Toushiro sick to the stomach having to bear such a thing with no hopes of his protests ever being heard.

"I wonder what you look like naked with that collar on," Grimmjow whispered through a nearly feline purr and Toushiro felt like he might black out. Nononono. And a sense of repeat, of rewinding, of re-living, re-dreaming a nightmare. The claws of panic pierced all the way to the very marrow of his bones, stirring the latent terror he'd been battling to keep at bay every single day, every time he was presented with unwanted physical contact. An awkward feeling of shrinking down, of becoming tiny and weak under his suddenly oversized skin, crawled over him – a mimic of a million spider legs, slipping in the space between flesh and innards.

Grimmjow was definitely aroused – Toushiro's fear was exciting him more and more by the second.

"I don't even think you'll tell Ichimaru," Grimmjow speculated, the truthfulness of those words landing like a punch in the boy's stomach. He shook on spot, logic and reason suddenly seeming as the silliest, most useless leverage in existence, and then he did the one thing he could think of – he squeezed his eyes shut. Don't stare at the beast.

"Stop." Pathetic. You're choking. "Stop, you won't- You can't-… Let me-" All of a sudden, Grimmjow's weight was off him and he gasped, blinking wide eyed as the sixth Espada staggered awkwardly backwards, away from him. It took Toushiro a second to connect the dots between his attacker's surprised face and the unnatural movements of his body until he saw the hand still clutching tightly the back of Grimmjow's collar.

"There you are," Gin said in his usual smooth, unperturbed manner of speaking, his brow depicting a curious arch as he observed Toushiro as though he'd just ran into him on the way to the cafeteria. "Been lookin' all ova' fo' ya. What took ya so long?"

Gin's fingers barely moved – it was the sort of thing that always baffled Toushiro so much; how the man who seemed so utterly and entirely overruled by selfish sloth could make matter bend to his will with motions frankly invisible to the human eye. All he did was seemingly withdraw his hand from the back of Grimmjow's jacket, but the Espada instantly skid halfway across the corridor, swinging his arms to keep his balance as Ichimaru calmly took a step in front of his pet and tucked a knuckle under the boy's chin.

"What is this obsession people have ta play with my toys?" Gin tsted, shaking his head once as he grazed his fingertip over the fading pink left from the slap. Possessive. It was the only recognizable streak Toushiro could vouch he could read off his master's face, but that small victory only made understanding the man harder.

"Ichimaru," Grimmjow's voice snapped the fox's attention away from his captive, and, quite effortlessly, with the casual gesture of a host that needed to look after all his guests, Gin pushed Toushiro behind his back and turned to face the espada. "The fuck is wrong with you?"

"Ya smell like canned cat food," Gin flipped relevantly and Toushiro could almost see the other's hackles rising to the remark.

"Your whore-"

"My whore. Yes. Mine. What exactly gave ya the permission ta touch 'im?"

Grimmjow was breathing heavily. A little more, one extra word, and he may have flung himself at Gin's neck. But Ichimaru wasn't stupid: he knew how to push to the very edge of the line, rub his toe along it, but never cross through without being forced by the other person.

When the silence stretched on, Gin merely cocked his head to the side and sighed, as though he was deeply regretting something (perhaps cutting the discussion short?) before stepping back and taking a hold of Toushiro's arm.

"Le's go," he said, and turned his back on Grimmjow.

Ichimaru's bedroom was a place Toushiro rarely went into – most of his time he spent holed up in his own tiny chamber or wandering the corridors in hopes to keep the numbness from his legs and the poisonous thoughts from entirely consuming his mind. He'd found himself a few more secluded places to go around Hueco Mundo, and so long as he came back soon enough, he didn't actually get in trouble. Gin never showed any concern his pet might escape – he'd let the boy wander about within less than three months of his stay here. It had caused quite a few complaints and funny looks at the beginning, but Ichimaru didn't seem to mind. At the end of the day, how far could Toushiro go, with no food, no help and no connection to Hyourinmaru whatsoever?

Exactly.

"I brought ya new clothes." Locking the door behind them, Gin gestured to the bed, where, as stated, lay a few clean, crisp articles of clothing, clearly brought from the world of the living. This was all Toushiro wore nowadays – awkward fashion choices and mixtures of human styles which usually far exceeded his body size and left him looking like a deranged misfit. For all his wits, Gin never seemed to learn to get a size right (or so he said anyway), and Toushiro's sleeves and pant legs were forever hanging on his frame rolled up, heavy and gaping around his frail wrists and ankles. Shoes had been an issue for a good half a year till Ichimaru had found a fitting pair and until then the captive had had to walk around in his socks and bare feet, unable to so much as make a step in the massive boats his owner had tried to pass along as footwear. Gin found the whole situation hilarious – Toushiro thought it was exasperating and absurd. The only reason he was currently somewhat comfortable in the clothes he was donned into, was due to the presence of a belt that cinched his jeans to an appropriate tightness, and because hoodies were generally not designed to be completely snug.

"That's very-" Toushiro broke his forcedly polite praise with a weary exhalation and closed his eyes for a moment, trying to compose himself. He still felt like a naked neuron – hyperaware of everything around him, every object and possibility of unwanted contact – and his brain was awfully over-engaged with these little details, with what had just happened, what could still happen if he wasn't careful enough.

"Thoughtful," Gin hinted helpfully. Toushiro gave him a blank look and slowly made his way to the bed and the clothes sprawled on top of it.

"Thoughtful," he agreed with distaste and lifted a simple grey cotton shirt to his eyelevel. The fabric felt nice and soft between his fingers as he rubbed his thumb and index finger over it, but somehow the gratitude he was expected to express once again fell flat against the knowledge of where he stood. Not a single little joy left. Not even that.

"Ya look a bit pale," Gin pointed out in his typical, tactless manner of speaking, and Toushiro heard him shuffling aimlessly around the room, playing with random items.

"Must be the light."

"Ya kno' he was only doin' it ta give ya a scare, right? He was neva' gonna go through with it."

And the unspoken: try to remember it, pet, as though Toushiro was just a lazy but promising student that needed constant urging in order to succeed. Mine, my whore. I don't share. How comforting. Another point where Ichimaru and he never seemed to meet quite right, slipping and skidding away from each other even though they sort of grazed the essence of what the person opposed them was all about. Toushiro must've said it a thousand times: being usurped and shackled by one monster or the other hardly made any difference. It makes all the difference in the world, Gin would say, not quite wanting to elaborate, although Toushiro had a feeling if he did, his arguments would ring a little too hollow to win the discussion.

In many ways, Gin was older, but still stubbornly a child. Possessive. So possessive, Ichimaru, even now, with his message, so clearly drawn, like a calligraphic title across otherwise unblemished paper: Grimmjow wouldn't dare – not to anything that belongs to me. Like that solved it all, summed the picture, sketched the lines where Toushiro began and Toushiro ended. But it was just wishful thinking, really. Gin was overestimating himself and his influence. Even here, because he couldn't cope with the fact that he was coming second – Aizen's foot was still firmly digging in his neck.

"He didn't," Toushiro swallowed thickly and put down the shirt. "He didn't scare me."

Gin gave up a sceptic snort as he glanced at his captive with a sideways smile, but by the look on his face Toushiro could tell the subject wouldn't be pushed any further.

"C'mon then. Try them on."

The fabric felt strangely heavy in his grip all of a sudden and for a single awful instant, the weariness and disgust that had piled up inside him for all these months nearly made him drop the shirt. Don't be a child. He took a deep breath in and turned his head to look at Ichimaru, one brow twitching ever so slightly as he pressed his lips firmly together, trying to get his problem across without actually having to say it out loud. The bastard that he was, Gin pretended not to understand what was going on for a few very long and frustrating seconds until a feigned light of a realization spread over his features and he chuckled.

"Ah," he drew a grand, benevolent gesture with his hand. "O' course, o' course, jus' lemme kno' when I can look." And he spun slowly and emphatically on his heel, his hands gathering at the small of his back as he assumed a comfortable position to wait for his pet to get changed. Lovely. Toushiro blew a small exasperated breath of air between his teeth and shook his head, already long resigned to his captor's strange antics. If there was one thing Ichimaru had successfully maintained through both his life in Sereitei and the new one as Aizen's right hand, it was his wicked taste for mischief – a feature which could curiously range from vaguely entertaining to absolutely sinister. Interestingly enough, Toushiro had never been on the receiving end of the more troublesome spectrum of Gin's character, though, undoubtedly, he'd seen enough to paint a profuse picture to anyone who wanted to know more details.

"Don't move until I say so," Toushiro said, mostly as a lame reassurance to himself. He was already starting to feel the unease which came with being undressed while in the same room as somebody else, but he madly stumped down on that ridiculous fear, trying to crush it before it could start messing with his head. His fingers buried in the folds of his oversized clothes with the usual urgency, shedding the layers of cotton as if they were on fire even though he knew, on a reasonable level, that there was no need to rush. Gin wouldn't turn around if he'd said he wouldn't – that much Toushiro had learned by now. Such generosity, however, had nothing to do with actual courtesy or sense of respect, regardless of appearances. No, the traitor's mind worked in a completely different way, and it had taken Toushiro a long time to figure out where most of Ichimaru's good will stemmed from….Why should Gin bother stirring bad air, when his presence alone was enough to send ripples through the boy's frail composure? The firmly established convention was plenty to present entertainment. I'll clothe you, I'll feed you, and one day, if I so decide-

I really can.

In the space under his temples, there was a headache already preparing to blossom and it made Toushiro's jaw clench as he pulled the last of his new attire on. As he expected, the size was still inaccurate – not nearly as much as the stuff Gin had previously brought him, but still big enough to make him grimace down at the sagging empty pockets of fabric.

"I'm ready," he mumbled reluctantly, pulling at the hems of his sleeves to see how much they hung over what was comfortable. Behind him Gin shuffled to turn around, and, mostly due to intuition and the familiar way the hairs at the back of his neck bristled, Toushiro felt him step closer, quiet as a cat.

"Is it good?"

"Trousers are still too loose around the waist."

"Really? I thought I'd got it right this time."

"Well, it's good two sizes larger than what I need. Maybe more."

"Let me see," Gin murmured, the sudden seriousness in his voice making Toushiro turn around in slight surprise. The unexpected proximity between them made him jump, his legs involuntarily trying to move him back, only to bump into the hard frame of the bed. Ichimaru didn't seem to notice the reaction – he probably had, but as usual, he deigned it no particular interest or recognition. His gaze wasn't even on Toushiro's face – he was staring down at where the smaller male's fingers were tucked into the trouser loops, and as he inched just a little closer, his hands suddenly reached out to grab the boy by the waist. The momentary contact between their very different, very mismatched hands had Toushiro flinching and pulling his fingers out of the way as fast as he could.

Don't move, don't move, don'tmove… Don't fucking give him that pleasure1

Seemingly completely unaware of the distress he was causing, Gin hooked his thumbs around the edge of the trousers' waist, slowly running them around in a circle, feeling the empty space left between the skin and the fabric. His touch left a burning trail in its wake, a path of goosebumps and a sickeningly erotic awareness of how easy, how close, how very much possible… everything was. At this rate, Toushiro's entire body had gone rigid, his teeth pressing down hard on his lower lip as he struggled to quench the urge to shudder at the nearly nonexistent brush of Ichimaru's skin against his own. The pet collar around his neck was suddenly suffocating him, biting into his flesh and squeezing it like a vice.

"Yer not breathin'," Gin pointed out matter-of-factly, one brow slowly rising even though he was still busy staring down, tugging at different places to check exactly how loose the newly brought clothes were. "Knowin' you, ya might go blue in the face befo' ya realize there's a problem…"

Toushiro exhaled almost on command, visibly deflating from the lack of air in his chest. Then he told himself to breathe again, even as the oxygen rushed into his lungs bitter and sharp, as though it was made of ice crystals. This, this kind of situation, was making things come back. Things he'd tried to get rid of, and not just memories of… what had happened a year ago. But more recently. More alarmingly. Was this what Gin was actually trying to do? Rock his unstable sanity, shred his composure to pieces, just to watch him panic and crumble?

"Do ya need ta sit down?"

It must've been about two months ago when it had happened. Toushiro remembered it more vividly than anything he'd been through in the last twenty-four hours – the experience had carved its initials into his mind with white-hot implements whose burn had not yet subsided.

It had been one of the few nights when he'd sank into an exceptionally deep and calming slumber, dreamless, eviscerating, something that had eliminated him from the world and the tight cage he had to live in.

He woke up to the strange feeling of moving down – like going underwater; nothing logical or possible to explain, but not immediately disconcerting, either. He'd been blissfully half-asleep for a second more - and then he'd stirred awake to the sagging of the mattress and the resigned creak of the bed as another body climbed on top of it. The scream never came. Somewhere deep in his chest, it had frozen and flaked and dissolved, until there was just ripped breath coming from his parted lips; a protest taken through a sieve and pulled to particles. He was staring wide-eyed into the blind blackness above him and trying to summon a sensible thought in his mind as an invisible hand pulled the blanket off him and the intruder's body covered his own.

Smell of alcohol. Spirits, carrying with it something familiar; a shape so well-known, a rhythm of movements that had become so painfully connected to him nowadays. Of course he'd recognize him – it should've been his first guess from the very start.

"Ichim-" a palm covered his mouth and his questions were crushed below it like cobwebs. An ice-cold wave washed over Toushiro as he tried to writhe away from the hold and realized, oddly enough, that Gin's face was not at level with his own; for once, he was not being watched. Everything was somehow mechanical and matter-of-fact, even as the bigger man adjusted himself over him, pinned his hand away, buried his nose in the crook of the boy's neck. Everything was off. It wasn't violent enough, it wasn't the kind of rape Toushiro had been fearing all this time. There were clothes between them, for fuck's sake. And sure, Ichimaru was using him, and it was disgusting, and the rocking against his unresponsive groin, and the quiet panting, and the alcohol – none of it was right. None of it made sense. The alcohol made no sense.

But then why? Why hold back if he had the power not to?

Just as suddenly as he'd appeared, Gin pulled off. He hadn't come – Toushiro could still sort of feel him, so painfully hard, against his clothed thigh. Then a glimpse of those strange eyes, bleary and unfocused for the very first time ever, until he pulled off and with a laughter so harsh it could've shattered glass, stood up and ran an unsteady hand through his disheveled silver hair.

"Wish I'd let you scream," he'd whispered, and next thing Toushiro knew, the door slammed shut.

In the present, things were completely different. Toushiro felt the faintness hit him like a slap in the face, arching up a massive, throbbing roar into his ears as his knees tried to give out from underneath his measly weight and bring him down, where he belonged. Ichimaru's spindly hands, sticky with the long dry blood of so many people, did not let go of him as he expected and instead, he felt them guide him back and make him sit down on the edge of the bed while Gin himself crouched in front of his captive. There was a beat of silence and the former tenth captain actually realized his vision was awfully blurry – a problem which often occurred after his visits in Szayel's lab but which usually didn't rear its ugly head without a good reason.

Was this a good reason?

"Pet," Gin's voice was strangely soft as a cold hand appeared suddenly at the back of Toushiro's head supporting it from lolling down and making his dizziness worse. Then the hand moved down to his cheek and another materialized beside it, mirroring its sister on the boy's face as Ichimaru turned Toushiro's head in the direction of his own red gaze, so he could peer at the half-seeing teal eyes in search for what was causing the issue. Toushiro tried to speak, but out came only a small moan, like strings of glue trailing after the separated pieces of something broken that had barely been brought back together before it was shattered yet again. In the background of the watery picture of reality, there flashed shadows of something else, the screams, hoarse, distorted, degenerated, screams from his own ripped throat. And pain, and pain, and pain. Laughter. Laughter.

Laughter…

Get those clothes off him. Fucking hold still, you c-

That's how you like it, isn't it? Rough and hard. That's right, bitch. Take it all.

Feel that? Feel me? That's right. Scream for me. Scream louder.

He breathed slowly as Ichimaru instructed him to, and waited for the fit to pass. When he felt the boy was stable enough to sit on his own, Gin sneaked behind him and gently unlocked the collar, removing it from the younger one's throat. Without it, breathing was easier, but the presence of the little devise wasn't entirely gone, and as he self-consciously lifted his hand to his throat, Toushiro could almost feel the pressure from the humiliating mark of ownership fastened over his skin, making him the dog, the bitch they all snidely assured him he was. Gin's fingers went to his captive's neck and he rubbed at the sore spots with expertise, kneading the muscles in silence while Toushiro got his act together, battling the tiny, vicious demons that still continued to bite at his heart in search for the weak nooks left from his defeat.

"Relax, will ya?" Gin mumbled quietly, following his mild reprimand with a now familiar tut-tut-tut, as though he was dealing with some silly kid who didn't know what was best for him. "For someone who is so afraid, ya sure put up a good bravado, eh? Went so white in the face, it actually matched yer pretty hair."

"'m fine," Toushiro managed, although his voice still sounded sluggish, as though it was coming from somewhere far, far away, where he had to drag it back with sheer power of will. He felt Gin's fingers at the back of his neck, then up into the scalp, applying gentle pressure into all the right spots to make the painful throbbing of the memories die out, fade, dissolve one after the other like drops of blood into the ocean. It took Toushiro a few more moments to recover completely and realize that, much to his embarrassment, his back was covered with cold sweat. He'd really lost it there for a moment – and Ichimaru hadn't even touched him that much.

"Ya know pet," Gin muttered, and Toushiro heard the distinct clatter of the collar being picked up. Assuming that his master's benevolence had reached its end and the time to put the leather strip back where it belonged had come, his body tensed up. Until Gin dropped the thing into his captive's lap and got up. "Ya hate this thing, but it's what keeps ya safe. Being mine is why ya're still alive. Do ya understand this?"

Toushiro didn't respond. His eyes were on the collar as his still shaky fingers slowly opened it over his knee, feeling with the thumb at the all the metal buds, the edges, the leather that now bore his meager value and the mark of his belonging on its spine. He imagined picking it up, reaching around and clasping the cold, shiny buckle just over the protruding bone at the back of his neck, and the picture alone made him feel sick the stomach because he realized that it was inevitable: not just a possibility, but a fact. He was this animal now, on the leash that Ichimaru held and swung back and forth for his own entertainment, and whether he tore this collar apart or didn't, whether he tugged or stayed perfectly motionless, it would still remain tightly binding his throat, even if the naked eye could not see it.

"Why?" Toushiro whispered, or rather the question scratched, clawed its way from the pit of his stomach all the way to his parched tongue as he looked up at his captor. Before him Ichimaru merely raised a slightly quizzical brow, his expression otherwise one of utter and absolute boredom. "Why are you doing this?"

"Doin' what?" Gin asked instead, flipping the question carelessly like he had only half-heard the boy speak. "I'm not doin' anything."

"Exactly. You're not doing a damn thing. You toy with me, you laugh at me, you sneer and leer and corner me, and watch me bleed, and then you pretend to try and make it better, and it all never, ever leads anywhere." He felt something like a sob arch up into him and as his chest heaved, billowing with the anguish and the shame he'd been suppressing for so long, he wished, more than ever, that he'd just let them kill him that day, after they'd finished with him, after they'd fucked him, and used him, and taken him so completely apart. What was the point of this now? What was the point, why did he have to keep existing like this? And it hurt because he knew there wasn't actually a point, and because nobody back home knew that he was alive – or even cared that he might be alive – and nobody had so much as tried to help him; nobody, nobody, nobody… "Do you want me to go mad?" Toushiro hadn't realized he had stood up until he was in Gin's face, shoving the collar into his hands, watching him watch him back like a viper regards its mouse. "Is that what it is? Is that what you're after?"

"Calm down, pet," Ichimaru murmured, but his voice broke into something of a snicker at the end of his incomplete reassurance, and Toushiro saw red at that, saw blood, saw pain, saw all these other faces – laughing at him as he bled on the floor, as his flesh was taken from him and he was no longer allowed to be the owner of his own body.

"How dare you tell me to calm down?" His voice was rising higher and he was shaking, shaking so hard. And somewhere deep inside he wanted Gin to hit him; prove to him that it was all just a game and that penalties were due when Toushiro broke the rules. It was such a perverse and twisted wish – to want someone to show you how little they thought of you – but that would put the world into its place, wouldn't it? It would make sense, and logical sense was the most vital, the most important thing that Ichimaru had deprived him of – knowing what was going on.

But Gin would not respond, and the rage, the terror that he was not being heard just arched higher. He wasn't able to judge, but he was probably shouting – that's what Gin had reduced him to; an unstable fraction of a person, breaking more and more every single day. "Don't I deserve to know what this is? Don't I get to know anything? Tell me what is happening in that head of yours, Ichimaru. Give me a little glimpse – it can't be that fucking difficult. What sort of unsound pleasure does this whole spectacle give you? Why do you care whether I'm clothed or naked, dead or alive, yours or somebody else's? Why didn't you just let me die?" the last part ripped from him as the first honest scream he'd given up in months and he even tried to push at Ichimaru's chest, only to have his hands restrained and then easily twisted behind his back until he was no longer facing his master, but the unmade bed before him.

"You know, Toushiro," Gin whispered in his ear, and the boy realized he was hiccupping, trying to catch his breath, but that the exhaustion was taking over him now and that it was probably time for his hysterical outburst to bear its consequences. He could feel it in Ichimaru's voice, that low, threatening, deceitfully gentle notch that meant he was planning to deliver a punishment: and even as one of those large hands left his wrist and lifted up to wrap under his chin and proper it up, Toushiro couldn't move. He was frozen on spot. Resigned. The smell of tears came belated to him as he felt one roll down his cheek and onto Ichimaru's fingers – fingers stained with so many ghosts of so many hot tears. "I want to tell you a little secret."

Toushiro didn't answer. He didn't have to, and when he tried to shake his head and say no, Gin didn't let him. He was not allowed such thing; denying anything was out of the question. Ichimaru's index finger slipped up, and in a manner so similar, yet so different to what Grimmjow had done earlier, it pressed against Toushiro's lips, grazing over them ever so softly, like butterfly wings. Then Gin pulled him closer still, leaving almost no space between their bodies as he nuzzled against the boy's ear-shell. "I think you're too pretty for a boy. And so beautiful when you cry that I can hardly look at you. But that's not your greatest flaw."

It was his cue to speak, and Toushiro realized, once his captor shut up, just how quiet everything was, and how exaggeratedly big, nearly deafening, their two breathing patters were: one hasty, one unnaturally, inhumanly calm.

"What is it then?" the boy croaked pitifully. Gin's finger didn't move from his lips – instead, it felt the texture of his words, the torn fabric of his voice as he asked, as Toushiro played along and came just one step closer to where Ichimaru wanted him to go. Then that large palm covered his mouth and fear returned – the fear of being silenced; not being allowed to even voice his protests. Gin's other hand fell from his wrist and his arm circled Toushiro's front instead, savoring the shivers as the set of five deadly fingers sneaked under his shirt, splayed on his stomach, up over his chest and above his heart. And suddenly, Toushiro could almost see Ichimaru as he was now, this strange way he was holding him, feeling his heartbeat, his breath, his lips, trying to take something from him that he couldn't, for the life of him, find on the surface. He didn't have to look, he just knew Gin had closed his eyes, and for a little while the silence that embraced him was not strange – it was unmasking.

"Your greatest flaw, pet," Gin whispered. "Is that I admire you."

The laughter never came. The joke was never exposed – ever – as a joke. Gin's hand fell from his mouth and Toushiro asked – because how could he not ask? – 'what does that mean?' – but Ichimaru's answer came elusive and soft, like powder, like a drug, injected in one's very bones. A confession. Or a glorious lie?

Or something else?

But why would he lie?

"Don't you get it, Toushiro?" came the smooth susurration. "You'd be dead if I didn't… You want to die, do you not? But you can't. Because you have to be alive, until I don't admire you anymore. Until you don't matter, you will have to stay and be mine; my plaything. I want you to not matter; I want you to be nothing. So why won't you be nothing?" Gin sighed, his breath ruffling the fine hairs over Toushiro's neck Then suddenly, Ichimaru was shoving him away, making him stumbled towards the bed on his shaky legs until he collapsed on his knees just in front of it. "Learn to be nothing – that's what you have to be. Then I'll fuck you and I'll kill you and it'll be over. That's what you want, right? That's what I'll give you as soon as you fulfill your side of the bargain."

The collar landed on the edge of the bed, right next to Toushiro's hand where Gin had tossed it, and he heard his master turn around and leave the room, slamming the door shut behind him.