A/N
DISCLAIMERRRRRRR: Do not own.
Title: Cold?
Rating: T for swearing, again.
Characters/Pairings: Mainly Shunsui & StarkxLilinette
Genre: Romance / Kinda angsty / kinda fluffy and the usual untinentional crack.
Summary: If Stark was a shinigami. It's a Stark & Lilinette fic... which ended up being just like Romeo & Juliette. Lawl they even sound the same.
"Ah, Szayel-san, I see you brought your latest creation. May I ask what it's called?"
"Of course, it's 'La qué si Máquina.'"
"Care to elaborate?"
"Well, it tells you what may happen, all you have to do is ask it a question."
"I see. Could I...?"
"By all means." Giving the former shinigami his latest pride and joy, he watched the man's façade crack a little, allowing just a little of his excitement to leak out. Realising he had left the room without dismissing him, he assumed he was going to ask his question in private, and that he was to await his return. Several minutes later, an extremely disgruntled Aizen burst through the doors and threw the machine at the first Arrancar he saw, who luckily caught it before having a what-if-machine-shaped hole firmly gouged into their face. Szayel slunk out of the room, disappointed. He wanted to piss the guy off, not commit suicide. Lamenting his loss and realising all-too-late that burning his notes post-completion was not his best idea, he conceded defeat, and, already being kind of bored with the machine anyway, returned to his laboratory thinking of releasing some of his pent-up creativity in a session with Cirucci...
"Stark! Wake up! Wake UP! WAKE UP!!"
"...Ugh... Lilinette... sleep now...talk later..." Several punches to the abdomen and other, slightly more sensitive areas and he was rendered thoroughly awake. "I'm up! You can stop now! I SAID I'M UP!"
"Look! I found something!"
"I can see that, but what exactly have you found?"
"Octava made it. He said it's," putting a manic grin on her face, she continued, "'La qué si Máquina'. Just ask it a question, like this! What if...uh..." she giggled, "What if Stark was a shinigami?"
"Stark?" Nanao sighed. "I've been looking for you everywhere, it's almost like you're deliberately avoiding me. I didn't even know it was possible to conceal your reiatsu while asleep." She gave him a sharp look and he just yawned in return. He thought that he'd be able to avoid working that day, though he probably could have hidden somewhere that wasn't on top of the 8th division office but he was just trying to get some sleep in the sun anyway. Said sun was now reflecting off Nanao's glasses in a somewhat menacing manner. Scratch that. Said sun was now reflecting off Nanao's glasses in an extremely, I'm-going-to-bakudo-you-right-where-it-hurts manner.
"What is it Ise-san?"
"You haven't done any of your paperwork for the past week and it's really starting to build up and I'm aware of the fact that you're only third seat and you have far less paperwork than I have but by this stage you still have a considerable amount left to do and-"
"Okay, okay, I'll do it," he submitted. Even though he knew that he could easily kick her ass, getting Nanao angry would result in a very angry Shunsui. And he rather enjoyed having limbs. Everyone knew that he could easily become fukutaichō, or even taichō but she was the only thing holding the division together and he loved being in Shunsui's division. Spontaneous sake-filled parties, lying in the sun even when there was no sun to lie in and generally just spending his time doing...well...nothing. Yeah, life was definitely good here at eighth. Though, he couldn't help but feel that something was missing. Exactly what it was, he couldn't pinpoint, but it was something he found difficult to live without at times. He'd only ever really told Shunsui about it, the two of them searching for answers at the bottom of many, many sake bottles whenever the world got just that little bit to difficult for them to bear. But aside from those nights, he was fine. When he wasn't doing paperwork, that was. He sighed and shunpo'ed back to the office where he found his taichō sleeping in the shade. "Teme..." he received a smirk from the man who was quite clearly not sleeping nor doing the piles of work in front of him and set to work on his own.
Crawling out of bed at some ungodly hour of the morning, Stark prepared for, yet another, captain's meeting. Ever since Aizen had fled to Hueco Mundo he was constantly being dragged to the things, seeing as he had mastered Bankai and may as well be a captain. That bastard Ikkaku still hadn't been discovered. It wasn't his fault his Bankai was about 50ft tall and really hard to conceal. He shunpo'ed there, naturally, he was always at least 20 minutes late and entered at the same time as his equally late taichō, taking his position beside him among what was left of the captains of the Gotei 13. The old man started talking and he was getting more bored by the second. Luckily, he had mastered the sleeping-while-standing technique after a particularly lengthy speech and had already employed it when he received a sharp nudge from Kyōraku. Apparently they had captured some Arrancar girl and thought they could get information from her, but didn't want anyone under captain-class to risk her going nuts, but none of the captains were, well, as expendable as he was. Great. Babysitting. Just what he needed. Having been dismissed from the meeting, he promptly (or more accurately; ridiculously slowly to the point of not really moving at all) made his way to Senzaikyū, the only place they saw fit to put her.
As the door slid closed behind him, he felt the comforting hum of reiatsu disappear, only seeming to make his senses more aware of the presence of the Arrancar girl he was currently scouring the vast open space for. As he was looking for her, he noticed how their reiatsu seemed almost to dance in the atmosphere, enclosed by the seke-seke stone, swirling lime green and bright blue in the semi-darkness, complimenting one another in a way rarely seen outside of, well, anything actually, and was something Stark himself had been yet to encounter until now. Discovering the source of the reiatsu, his eyes fell upon the small, shivering form of a small girl, curled up in a ball with her arms hugging her legs. Bright green hair obscured an equally bright pink eye, a huge helmet, completely out of scale with the rest of her body, covered her head and hid one of her eyes. He couldn't help but notice how few clothes she was wearing, and the goosebumps he could see all over her body.
"Cold?"
"N...N-n-n-no."
"I'll take that as a yes then," he sighed. "Look, I've been assigned to...well basically I've been assigned to make sure you don't kill anyone but I'd go so far as to assume that they don't want you to die either, at least, not of hypothermia." She cracked a small smile, which quickly returned to its previous melancholic state.
"I kn-n-now why you're h-here. A-a-and I'm not-t-telling you a-anything!"
"I thought you'd say that, but old man Yama wants me interrogating you, but I think we both know that even if I pinned you to the floor and threatened you with imminent death, you wouldn't say a word."
"I d-don't think I'd m-mind th-that much."
"Death?"
"Y-you p-pinning me to the f-f-f-floor." she smirked. He returned it with a smile of his own.
"This is ridiculous. You're freezing half to death over there! Your clothes are just... beyond impractical... why haven't you been given...anything? Have they given you anything at all?"
"N-n-nope."
"Wait here."
"D-duh." He left the Senzaikyū, once more being assaulted by the reiatsu of countless shinigami and returned to his quarters. Grabbing the first set of shihakushō he could find and a couple of bottles of sake (maybe Arrancar were more like shinigami than you would think, who knows?) and returned once more to the tower. "Y-you were q-qui-quick."
"Put these on." he threw her the clothes.
"A sh-shihakushō?! You t-taking the p-piss?!"
"Put them on or I'll put them on you."
"F-fine."
"Maybe you'll stop shivering for five seconds and you can finish a sentence without stuttering."
"H-hey, s-shinigami?"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks."
"Just doing my job." As she slipped her zōri on, she sunk back down the wall she had been leaning against. Once again hugging her legs, she rested her head on her knees. "Hey, Arrancar, what's your name?"
"Lilinette, you?"
"Stark."
"Heh. That doesn't sound like a very shinigami name, shinigami." He sank to the ground beside her and elbowed her in her exposed side. "What was that for?"
"Cheer up. No point being afraid of something you can't change so just bear through it with your head held high and at least you can say that you did it with dignity." She lifted her gaze to him and smiled, a genuine smile this time. "Now. Do you Arrancar drink sake?"
"Umm...that depends. What's sake?"
"I have so very much to teach you." He gave her a warm smile, as genuine as her own, produced two (of many) sake bottles and handed her one, having forgotten the dishes, but he drank straight from the bottle most of the time anyway. "Drink." She did. In fact, she drank the whole thing. Then coughed. A lot. "Strong?"
"Nothing I can't handle." She replied, betrayed by her now incredibly hoarse voice.
"I probably should have started you off on the weaker stuff; this is the strongest I've got. I just thought that maybe with you being an Arrancar and all-" she forcibly stopped him from talking by grabbing his chin and turning his face towards her.
"Fankyou, zhinigami." she dropped the bottle with a resounding clunk on the hard floor and slumped into him, unconscious. He caught her before he lost an eye from her helmet and held her there, lest he wake her up and incur the wrath of a grouchy drunken Arrancar. (At least he told himself that that was the reason, not the fact that he felt strangely complete with the gently snoring girl in his arms.)
The two men sat in their usual spots in their usual dusty old Rukongai bar, surrounded by sake bottles. (As usual.) They were alike in many ways, unshaven face, long curly hair, kind eyes. Not to mention the fact that their lives seemed to revolve around similar things; sake, sleep, women. Tonight was one of the nights, the kind of night which is never forgotten, the night where all the walls separating two people crumble. A conversation takes place wherein they discover more about one another than they ever thought they could, where they feel a sense of openness unlike anything ever felt before. On these nights, Stark felt like he could tell his taichō anything.
"Hey, Shunsui?"
"Mmhmmn?"
"Can I ask you something?
"O' course. Shoot."
"Have you ever felt like something was missing? Like, you just weren't complete?"
"Yes. I used to feel that way before-"
"Before you found it, the missing piece. You found Nanao. See, therein lies the problem. I found it too."
"The Arrancar girl."
"How'd you-"
"You thought I didn't? Who knows you better than I? The great, intuitive, genius, Kyōraku Shunsui! Don't worry, I haven't told anyone, but you have to understand that if you pursue this, they won't hesitate to label you a traitor. What you have to ask yourself is this, am I willing to die with this girl, am I willing to die for her?"
"But what if they killed her here? Surely her soul would, as any other, have to come to soul society, but by being here already, wouldn't that just turn her into an ordinary soul?"
"It's a possibility, but what if they don't? And even so, could you live with yourself knowing that you witnessed her death without doing anything to stop it?"
"I don't know. You're supposed to tell me I'm a horrible person for ever even considering such actions and eternally condemn me for fraternising with the enemy." The elder man laughed, a sight often seen but rarely with this level of sincerity.
"Who am I to tell you who you can and cannot love? The heart wants what it wants. Even if what it wants is a little... different. Hey, opposites attract."
"I'm not in love with her though, there's just this... connection."
"Well, you have to decide, are you willing to die for a girl you've just met?"
"I think I decided as soon as I laid eyes on her."
"Had a feeling you might say that," he said, seeing the questioning look the other man gave him, he added, "I felt the same. In fact, I still feel the same. Among the shinigami there's this saying, old wives' tale, whatever you want to call it, I can't remember it exactly, but basically it said that for every soul out there, there was one other soul for them, the perfect match. It said that when souls were first created, they were created to suit one other person completely but through various deaths and reincarnations of the same souls, these paired souls were separated. Hence why loneliness is pretty much the only universally felt emotion. A one in 6 billion chance of finding someone kinda goes against the odds, so finding them makes it that much more special, and you know straight away. You see, it's also said that as soon as their reiatsu met, they knew they were the one for one another." Stark raised an eyebrow.
"You're kidding right? You think we're soul-mates? You've gone soft, taichō. Real soft."
"Mock all you want but you know I'm right. You saw it, didn't you? Your reiatsu, it reacted, didn't it?" Seeing the look on Stark's face he continued, "Haha! I knew it!" Proof. Shunsui mentally I-told-you-so'd then realising the death of one of his best friends was imminent, he turned sombre, not quite matching the infamous stoicism of a certain clan leader but that was virtually impossible no matter how many tragedies you were facing.
"So what do I do?"
"Go to her."
Being constantly stuck in the Senzaikyū was bad enough as it was without having to worry about anything other than her impending doom. If she gets reincarnated she's so going to stab Nnoitra. Lots. In the face. Fucking coward. Who leaves their Fracción to get captured just because they don't feel like fighting a couple of shinigami?! It's not like she was useless to him, she'd always been a good little Fracción, doing what she was told. She didn't really want to think about half the stuff he told her to do. She shuddered.
"Cold again?" She had been so lost in thought she hadn't even noticed him come in, let alone sit down beside her. She hadn't even gotten to the real reason why she wanted to kill Nnoitra. It was that he had forced her to get stuck here, but not because she was scared of dying, no hollows really were. Death was second nature to her. No, this was a bigger and far more annoying predicament. And it'd just sat down beside her. Every time he spoke it sent chills down her spine. He edged closer. "You all right?" Concern, what kind of shinigami feels concern for a hollow, an Arrancar no less? "You seem kind of... spaced out." He reached out a hand and placed it on her shoulder, giving her a slight shake, several butterflies in her stomach and a heart rate of about 160bpm. "Hey, Lilinette!"She turned her face towards him and took his hand off her shoulder. It really wasn't helping matters.
So yes, meet Problem A, Stark liked her. He had come to see her everyday and even though he seemed to be avoiding her as much as possible, she didn't miss the stolen glances, the feather-light touches. But alas, Problem A would not be Problem A if there was no Problem B, so, meet Problem B. She liked Stark. This was blatantly obvious considering the whole butterfly thing. Now, these would not be problems if it wasn't for Problem C. Problem C; she was a hollow and he was a shinigami.
Having once again lost herself in her thoughts she hadn't noticed that when she took his hand off her shoulder, she hadn't moved her hand from holding his, at least until he started drawing soothing circles with his thumb. "Hey shinigami." Realising that at some point in her train of thought she had moved her head to stare mindlessly at a wall, she turned back to face Stark. Having only just noticed that he wasn't trying to get away from her, she guessed that he'd conceded defeat. Taking the opportunity she thought she might not get again, she leaned towards him and, closing her eyes, she pressed the lightest of kisses on his lips, revelling in the way his lips moved beneath hers, tasting experimentally that distinct flavour of Stark. Parting said lips to allow her more access, she deepened the kiss and explored his mouth with a quiet fervour, delicately massaging his tongue with her own, tasting the sake from his unfinished night of wallowing in self pity. She placed several more feather-light kisses to his lips and settled in his arms, relaxing immediately into his embrace while he stroked his fingers through her hair. "We're screwed."
"True that." Stark couldn't help but think that they were just like Romeo & Juliet.
The expressions of the two Arrancar were indescribable as they looked from the screen to one another and back to the screen again, opening and closing their mouths as they tried to say something when the words wouldn't come out, and only accomplishing looking a bit like fish. They seemed to simultaneously return to reality and on doing so, they left the room through separate doors.
A/N
Sorry this took so long but it hated me more than anything I've ever written. Ever. Shunsui is so OOC it hurts ;-; . It's really hard to keep characters in character when you have about 30 seconds of...well...existence to go on. And sorry I didn't continue but I figure you get what happens, since they're just like Romeo & Juliet. If you don''t get it, I'll tell you. They die. Together:) And I lolled at the whole soul-mates thing, it hurt to write .
OKAY SO. I have ALOT of exams in the next two weeks. Bad exams. ;-; So I may be rendered useless to the world. AMAGAD I HAVE A LEVER ARCH FILE OF BIOLOGY TO LEARN. I'm screwed. WHO THE FUCK CARES?!
AHHHND, I need to write crack, pure crack.
OH AND PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE SUGGEST THINGS. Seriously I'll do pretty much ANYTHING. Honestly... I'm obedient like that. Any pairing, any situation, story, anything. I really, really don't mind. Unless you're being obviously mean ;-; .
Kay so, thanks for reading:)
xX Robocracy!!1111oneoneleven