Gin/Rangiku. A tribute.
Gin didn't imagine alternatives.
From the moment he noticed the flash of strawberry blonde in the sparse sunlight that filtered into the clearing, the sight of her face white and gaunt with malnutrition, white skin stretched over weak flesh and fragile bones, the sensation of something catching painfully in his throat – his path had been set, written in little half-moons on his palm, the mark of nails digging too deeply, in a small furrow that can never be completely removed, between his brows.
He didn't love her then – but he will, he will with the intensity of a shipwrecked wretch, because Ran was the only home and the only light and the only grace he ever knew – didn't even know her, but he waits until she comes to, poison churning silently in his blood, gives her a smile she sees through immediately, and offers her the promise he'll spend his existence fulfilling: justice.