A/N: Well, this is a long one. About twice the other two, give or take.
Just to put it out there, this may not be regularly updated. It's just a little thing I'm screwing around with when I feel like it.
That being said... Reviews keep it going ;D
"Even angels hide their wicked schemes, but you take that to new extremes..."
Love the Way You Lie, Part II ~ Rihanna ft. Eminem
Bad Timing
It's obvious to everyone who has the misfortune to be in the painted Captain's way as he storms toward the First Division headquarters for that damnable Captain's meeting that Kurotsuchi is on a particularly brutal tear today. There isn't a single Soul Reaper stupid enough to stay in his line of sight for more than a few seconds lest they turn into some experiment or another that was never actually meant to be fruitful.
There are a good thousand different places he would rather be than standing in line with the other Captain's and listen to the old man drone on and on about useless things.
The Seireitei has been quiet for quite a while now, dreadfully so if one were to ask a few of the Captains and perhaps a Lieutenant or two. There's very little for anyone to do other than routine training sessions and repairs to the Seireitei and the closest districts of the Rukongai.
This has made for awfully dull Captain's Meetings. No one is quite sure of the Head Captain's motives in calling them when the most pressing matter is that Zaraki has yet again had one of his subordinates forge the large Captain's signature. Not that anyone is even remotely surprised by this development, but they all roll their eyes and subtly glare at the man as if this is the only reason they have been dragged away from they're duties. Except, of course, a certain painted Captain, who stares daggers into the other man with shameless and utter distain.
Kurotsuchi mentally plans the live dissection of his most hated person in the room and doesn't even bother to hide the dark fantasy from his features - a scowl that probably would kill a lesser man, twitching fingers, and an impatiently tapping heel.
"If you're going to slack off and cover it up, at least put half an effort into it," the blue-haired male all put growls, his mood far worse for the day's previous events.
If he hadn't been called here, he'd be two-thirds finished with yet another new toxin by now. Or maybe he'd be gathering new test subjects, despite the fact that his numbers of squad members "killed in action" this month is already pushing his allowance.
This, inevitably, starts another bickering match between the two Captains which the Head Captain has to personally end.
Yes, there are a thousand other places that Mayuri Kurotsuchi would rather be than here. A thousand other tasks he could be doing, poisons he could be making, subjects he could be dissecting. And yet only a single female he'd rather be at his side than all twelve of the other Captains, his traitorous mind reminds him, thinking far beyond the situation as it usually does.
He tries to shove down the thought, or better yet deny it, but he finds he cannot.
Science requires one to be capable of setting aside one's personal bias for an accurate conclusion. If one expects a certain outcome, it is inevitable that this expectation will cause even subconscious alterations to an experiment.
Compartmentalization is one of the blue-haired Captain's most finely0tuned skills. There is no one that can put aside personal objectives like he can.
He has never cursed the talent so sincerely in his life as he has in this moment as he realizes that it has made it impossible for him to lie to himself. About anything, it seems.
Yet another petty complaint drops from the Head Captain's lips, and it's only this one that can drag Kurotsuchi from his self-chastising. It's something about the Twelfth, a repair not being to the old man's liking - probably a mismatches shade of paint for a building or something equally trivial.. It sounds like a perfect excuse to take out his stress on a few squad members, but Kurotsuchi is far too high-strung to let it slide.
The grin that crosses his face looks more like a sneer.
"If you don't like the way it's done, do it yourself. My squad has more important things to be doing," he snaps, lip curling in distaste. "Make the Fourth fix it."
He feels the not-glare that Unohana sends his way, but he doesn't so much as flinch. There's nothing that woman can do to him that he doesn't do to himself for the fuck of it.
"And what's so important?" Zaraki blurts as if unable to resist bickering with the smaller man.
Said smaller Captain returns with a surprisingly long list of tasks, anywhere from gigai repairs to minor technological improvements that the Head Captain has been trying to rush him into finishing. The other tries to retort about efficiency, but Kurotsuchi cuts him off with a laugh and a too-bitter "then you and your barbarian squad can do it".
The meeting concludes soon after with another warning to Zaraki that will again go unheeded and muttered "get to it when you can" directed toward Kurotsuchi, and the others file out, a few chattering amongst themselves as they do.
It's not like they have any pressing orders to get to, after all.
The painted Captain can't get out of the room fast enough, but drawing any more attention to his current stress level might very well lead to someone deeming it necessary to intervene. And if he has to stand there and listen to someone faking concern, he might just snap. Well, more than he already has, that is.
He certainly does not tense when a hand finds his shoulder to stop him just outside the room and tugs him off to the side. His jaw does not clench, nor does his fist. He is the epitome of calm.
At least, that's what he tells himself.
The voice that reaches his ears is one that he doesn't necessarily hate, but it's certainly one he has always been suspicious of. How anyone can be that nice and actually mean it is beyond the blue-haired man as he jerks around to meet an alarmingly gentle and knowing gaze.
Beside his confronter is the other Captain's right arm - or he might as well be for how attached the two are.
Kurotsuchi makes a mental note to ask his Third what footage the younger man as on the inseparable pair that is the Captains of the Eighth and Thirteenth.
It's the brunette that the scientist has the most problem with - the lazy waste of space. But he'll keep the internal ranting to himself at the moment, lest he spill something about his true stressor.
He doesn't hear what Ukitake says, the clawing in his overactive minds is drowning just about everything out at the moment. If Kurotsuchi wasn't Kurotsuchi, he might have put money on him having a panic attack at any moment. But the painted Captain doesn't have anxiety attacks, he's just overly annoyed with everything in his path the moment.
"...ee. I mean, you've always been high-strung, but you seem a little more off-kilter than usual," Kurotsuchi catches the end of the brunette's remark, and it's not nearly mocking enough to make the painted man comfortable in this conversation.
The Captain of the Twelfth has always made a point to keep his distance from the other captains - all twelve of them. After being sent to the Maggot's Nest for being insane, then being exploited for that insane brilliance, watching the one Captain he'd almost trusted - despite hating his guts - betray everything they worked for and give the Twelfth a stigma they'd barely recovered from over a century later, and finally learning that he'd been outwitted by the man he'd kept his eye on the closest, Kurotsuchi has learned that not a single one of them is all that different from himself. Thus, they cannot be trusted to have anyone else's interests in mind.
Mayuri Kurotsuchi has always been fairly self-aware. He knows his mind works differently, knows he feels differently. He knows he's not at all a good person, he just doesn't care. And in his experience, none of these other Captains are any different.
Which makes it incredibly awkward for the youngest man in this small group of three as he stares down two seemingly genuine looks of concern.
"Tch," he finally spits, turning around with every intention of ignoring them otherwise. But to his complete displeasure and utter annoyance, they follow him.
In all rationality, they are all three headed the same way, but it's obvious they are following him. They're walking too closely behind him to be doing anything but.
It just makes the youngest man's teeth grind against each other. He's knows what they're doing.
Kurotsuchi is not a man that can keep quiet. He mutters to himself constantly in the lab, despite his irritation when others speak to him while he's working. There's something about him that won't let him simply shut up. If he has any faults, it is this. He often gives nothing away, but he's aware that's likely only because no one can understand the terms he uses.
But with this situation... They are terms that anyone would understand, and like hell he's opening with "so there's this girl".
Because it's not her that's the issue. It's the stirring in a place in his chest he didn't even know he possessed and the churning of his gut that says he knows exactly what each little pang is.
The problem is that he's emoting and he doesn't know how to deal with it - not that he will ever admit to such a thing.
But it's not emotion in a way anyone else could understand.
He doesn't want to buy the woman flowers and spoiler her rotten.
He just wants to fuck her into a mattress rather than the side of a lab table or the floor.
He doesn't want to marry her and start a damn family.
He wants to dominate her, claim her.
He wants to cut her open and brand her.
He wants to own her.
And there's no way someone like Ukitake or Kyoraku would understand such a thing. They emote like normal people. They love, they don't possess. Trying to explain it would be pointless.
"It's nothing the likes of you could understand," he snaps over his shoulder, hands shoving deep into his pockets as he stalks back to his lab.
They're stronger than him, he knows, so there'd be no point in trying to run from them only for them all to end up at his Division, where the answer to their question would be obvious, but too complicated for those two to possibly grasp. They'd give him hell about "having feelings" and tell him something like "it's only natural to care for someone".
And they'd have no idea what they'd be talking about. Because Kurotsuchi doesn't care beyond that he wants to be the one that ends her.
He will be the one to claim her, and the one to destroy her.
There's a chuckle behind him that makes the painted man's skin crawl.
"If I didn't know better, I'd say he's got a girl problem!" The brunette laughs again in his irritatingly jovial way, but it's cut off with an "oof" and a thud as he's elbowed in the ribs by his friend.
"Tch. As if I'm burdened by such trivial things," he's convincingly annoyed, but he's not sure if the others think it's due to the implication that Kurotsuchi has emotions or the fact that's he's - somewhat - correct. He decides not to press his luck and grit out that the others would be wiser to simply leave him alone.
He barely avoids being thrown as a solid weight slams into abdomen. There's a growl that he instantly recognizes - one that rarely is in this part of the Seireitei for obvious reasons. He doesn't need the louder roar to know what's happened. He just doesn't understand how.
Neither of them is mindful of the fact that he has his arm around the masked woman's waist, holding her off her feet and in place against his chest. They're both staring down the escaped test subject with an intensity that already has it backing away.
The other two behind the painted man notice, however. They notice that their younger isn't flinching at the contact or shoving the woman away. And they notice that they seem to be silently communicating with one another as she shoves off the scientist with both feet and he shoves her forward, propelling her into the modified Hollow.
One goes to grab one of his swords, but the painted Captain simply crosses his arms over his chest.
"It's her mess, she'll clean it up," he sneers at the others as if that should be obvious.
But they are aware how closely he's watching the fight between his Fifth seat and the Hollow.
What they don't know, is that the Captain isn't worried for her life, but for a secret he, his Lieutenant, his Third, and the masked woman have been keeping since she arrived. One that will get her killed should she reveal it - and more importantly, Kurotsuchi will catch hell for it, special privileges from the Central 46 or not.
And there is no way in hell he is going back to the Nest at all, let alone for something so stupid.
She has the Hollow disabled quicker than the two older Captains had anticipated, but the younger isn't surprised at all. Instead, he has he by the hair in a heartbeat, yanking her head roughly back to glare at her.
"And just how the hell did that happen?" He asks in a sing-song voice that has at least one of the other Captains flinching back. There's something deranged in that wide, all-tooth smile and those feral, golden eyes.
She shrugs a little too nonchalantly for the scene to make any sense, then lifts her hands. At first, Kyoraku thinks she's trying to struggle, but she ends up making odd hand motions too quickly for either the brunette or the sickly Captain to catch.
"What idiot decided that was a good idea?!" The painted man all but roars in her face. It's a rhetorical question, but she signs to him again anyway. "You'd better fucking figure it out," he snaps.
He doesn't quiet register what he's doing or that the other two are still watching as he leans his face a little too close to hers and speaks again in a soft, but definitely menacing half-growl, half-whisper.
"It'd really be a shame to count you among the unfortunate accidents."
Her only response is bringing one hand up to his throat with a look that clearly says "if you think you can".
There's a long silence afterward, the two giving each other the most challenging looks to have ever been given, faces far too close to each other's.
Only Kyoraku's unintelligible exclamation - which is cut off by his best friend dragging him away via flashstep - knocks the two out of their staring contest.