Chapter Four

Noise

{*XOXOX*}

YEARS AGO…

Ichigo, 17. Alive.

"Ichigo," Hitsugaya said, happy to see him. The pleasantry fell from his voice at first sight of what walked in beside his friend. Hitsugaya froze."The hell is that doing with you?"

Grimmjow struck the Shinigami with his eyes. The two of them glowered until Ichigo sucked up the courage to stand between them.

"Hitsugaya, this is Grimmjow. He's Arrancar number six. Come to help us…"

"Woah," Hitsugaya cut in, diverting his hateful attention from Grimmjow to his rescuer. "You mean to tell me you fell for something like that?"

"Something like what?" Renji's arrival made Ichigo gush a sigh. "Ichigo, look out!"

His reaction drove Ichigo to yelling point. "How dumb do you think I am, you guys? I let him follow me!"

"Well then I think you're pretty dumb," Hitsugaya awarded him with this verdict, casting looks between the substitute Shinigami and his Arrancar friend. "Do you have any idea what is happening in Hueco Mundo right now?"

"No," Ichigo countered hotly, gesturing to Grimmjow, "But I'll bet he does."

"He's an Arrancar, Ichigo!" Renji said as though it were the end of the world, mustering speech at last. "He kills our kind! And he's good at it."

Hitsugaya brought the sleek steel of his blade into the light on those words. The same fear seemed to encroach on his eyes. "I'm with Renji. The Arrancar dies."

"Renji didn't even say that," Ichigo argued, frowning helplessly. Wishing he'd taken a different way in. "Come on. He's pretty much smashed to pieces right now. Who's he gonna hurt?"

"Boys, don't fight over me," Grimmjow slipped in inappropriately. Ichigo shot him a quick glance and suddenly thought to pull him into the conversation.

"Grimmjow, you're on our side, right? Tell them why you left Hueco Mundo. Tell them why you came to Soul Society." Ichigo hadn't even heard that much himself yet. Grimmjow had been too busy choking on his own blood to manage the words earlier.

"Yeah, do tell," Hitsugaya added snobbishly.

Ichigo stared imploringly across at the Arrancar, whose arrogant eyes stood out even when racked with pain.

"I came to use you as a shield."

"You what?" Ichigo hissed in rapid regret for asking.

"And I wanted that all the way up until," as Grimmjow's eyes crossed to Ichigo's he continued, "I met you."

{*XOXOX*}

PRESENT DAY…

"Wait," Byakuya stuck a hand out to block Hitsugaya's careless trotting.
"Why're we stopping?" Hitsugaya wanted to know faithlessly, throwing eyes around the place. "It's just a normal town. This is a normal street. Do you see Ichigo or something?"

"I believe I do," Byakuya surprised him by saying. He thrust an elegant hand up towards the distance. "Hard to miss him."

"Yeah, orange haired freak." Hitsugaya's eyes caught up with the sight of Ichigo. He looked so indulged in pleasant thought as he navigated the town's streets alone. "So what're we gonna say to him?"

"I have no idea. I was just going to intimidate him with my superiority."

Hitsugaya blinked twice to dispel his surprise. "Just how superior do you think you are?"

"You go speak with him then."

"Alright, fine. Be back in a minute." Hitsugaya had taken a short step in Ichigo's direction when Ichigo suddenly stopped dead and tossed his head back. Hitsugaya watched Ichigo's lips form around an unnerving word.

From his distance, he couldn't hear amid the hum of the town, but he wasn't let down on his estimate. From out of nowhere, the blue haired Arrancar came shredding up to join Ichigo like a dog on a leash.

Hitsugaya's mouth fell open, and he flicked a look back at Byakuya.

"Oh wow. Surprising." Byakuya offered under Hitsugaya's pressurizing stare. "Guess love is better at following up than we thought."

{*XOXOX*}

"Please keep up with me," Ichigo requested with a slight smile.

"You would hate to lose me," Grimmjow filled in the rest of it for him with a proud smirk. "I know. Hey, um, Ichigo. Do you want to buy me something I just thought I might want..?"

"Food?"

"Aw, you do listen!" Grimmjow slung an arm around his shoulder in the spur of the moment. "Do something else for me."

Ichigo looked into his face dubiously as Grimmjow's eyes carried left and then right again before returning to his. "Like?"

"Like tell your friends they got no business messing in your business." Grimmjow deliberately leant in closer to Ichigo as Hitsugaya pulled into view from around the corner.

"Ichigo!" Hitsugaya called out, and suddenly the gathering of Shinigamis and Arrancar was drawing the attention of surrounding soul citizens. "How many times do I need to-?"

"Shut up, snowflake!" Grimmjow shot at him rapidly. Last thing he wanted was Hitsugaya's version of the truth flung at his forgetful partner. "How about you try fight me now that I'm not outnumbered, huh? Or don't you wanna die?"

"How about you tell him why he died."

Grimmjow bit his mouth closed.

Ichigo felt really weird about being held by Grimmjow so firmly in a crowd full of curious eyes. "Guys, what's happening?"

"I did try to warn you," Byakuya admitted, materializing from seemingly thin air. Hitsugaya noted him with a grateful nod as he spoke. "But there are some forms of love less acceptable than others."

"It's like you forgot everything he did to you, Ichigo!" Hitsugaya inserted blindly, resulting in Byakuya's signature sigh. "What?"

"He has forgotten everything. That's what death is." Byakuya enlightened him.

Hitsugaya turned a cruel smile on Grimmjow. "Oh really? So what…you just thought we wouldn't tell him or something?"

"Tell me what?" Ichigo raised the question, checking up at Grimmjow for some reason. It was Grimmjow's answer he was seeking.

"He betrayed you, Ichigo. Like we said he would. He made sure you died after he got what he wanted."

"Yeah, way to twist a story," Grimmjow fired back, tightening his hold on Ichigo absently. "I don't mean to put it out there, but you're the ones who let his family die."

"We didn't let them die! They died out of our control!"

"My family?" The statement was an instant memory trigger. A violent wave of suppressed thoughts rode through his brain and he staggered.

Grimmjow moved his attention to Ichigo, who was leaning his full weight on him now. "Ichigo? Hey, Ichigo, you with me?"

"Nice going, Arrancar."

Grimmjow found it easy to ignore him completely while Ichigo's eyes lost their shine. "Ichigo?"

{*XOXOX*}

YEARS AGO…

Ichigo, 17. Alive.

"What's he doing here?" Byakuya asked nonchalantly, seated at his desk as Ichigo stepped in with Grimmjow.

Renji dashed up behind them. "Well, you see, Captain. The thing with Ichigo is he doesn't listen, and…"

"He's hurt. And he's helping us. Can I keep him here?" Ichigo interrupted.

"In my house?"

"Please. No one else can know about him."

"So you decided to involve me in your conspiracy…why exactly?"

"It's not a conspiracy," Ichigo stressed the words in a higher pitch.

Renji gushed air as Hitsugaya knocked him aside from behind. "Move, tall person. Captain Kuchiki, the enemy's been brought in here. He says Aizen's going to launch war soon."

"Predictably."

"And now he actually wants to join sides with us."

Byakuya nodded, feigning interest. "Ah, I see."

"That's it?"

Byakuya's inner lazy will prompted him to nod. "Well, I don't have any issues with it as long as it doesn't turn into my problem."

"It won't," Ichigo inserted quickly.

"Problem settled then." Byakuya shrugged, gesturing to the upper floor of his mansion. "There's a room up there. You may have it temporarily. Only… I don't want to hear any noise from the thing, if that's not too much trouble."

"Can you be quiet?" Ichigo felt the need to confer with Grimmjow.

The Arrancar nodded. "I won't let you down. Show me the place."

Ichigo departed with Grimmjow at his side, still weak from the injury Ichigo's makeshift bandage wasn't completely holding together for him.

"This is insane," Hitsugaya said as his friend and his enemy brushed past him on their way out the door. "Someone's going to die. This is stupid."

Byakuya shrugged again, folding his hands beneath his chin. "I like to think of the heightened odds we'll have if we stay in possession of one of Aizen's closest."

"I like to think of it is as letting one of Aizen's closest in here," Hitsugaya countered. "And all the heightened odds he'll have when that Arrancar skips back home to him with our intelligence."

Renji lingered at the doorway, throwing a look after Ichigo and Grimmjow as they made their way upstairs.

"So why do you trust me so much?" Grimmjow asked as they fell from view.

The question struck a chord in Ichigo, since he really hadn't thought about it. He'd become so preoccupied with fighting for Grimmjow to stay with them that he hadn't figured out a reason why he wanted Grimmjow to stay with them in the first place. "I really don't know. You just don't seem like the lying type, I guess."

"Do you really believe that?"

"I…" Ichigo doubted himself again. He trained his eyes ahead of them as he led the way down the upstairs hall. "Well, I like to think I can trust everybody actually."

"So you'd trust anybody?"

"Well, no, not, anybody…"

"So just me?" Grimmjow's smirk flashed white in the gloom of the unlit passageway. Ichigo stared at him with sudden interest.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh hey, nothing. I just…liked the thought, that's all."

"What, the thought of just you?"

"Is this the room?"

Ichigo stopped walking a little way ahead of Grimmjow. He looked back and realized he'd passed it. "Huh. Yeah, it is."

"You sure you can trust me enough to leave me alone in here?" Grimmjow asked, leaning arrogantly on the doorframe.

Ichigo narrowed his eyes slightly. "I hope so."

"Hope? Really? That's a tiny little precautionary measure…"

"You know, there's no such thing as gratitude in this world." Grimmjow's face tensed suddenly, worrying Ichigo. "What?"

"No, it's just…" Grimmjow put a hand to his wounded side involuntarily, "your bandage is really useless."

"Oh, sorry. Let me get you something-"

"Yeah, you do that," Grimmjow said half-dazedly, sliding to the ground in one fluid motion with a groan of pain. "Ow…"

"Is that noise I hear?" Byakuya asked as the dull thud of Grimmjow's collapse resounded above his head. Ichigo had just passed his office in a hurry as he spoke the words.

"No Sir!' Ichigo flung back, racing to locate a medical aid pack. Renji was conveniently bringing one down the path at that very minute.

"Hey, Ichigo. I thought you might need-"

"Thank you!" Ichigo was there and gone.

Renji had never seen him so animated before. "Does this mean you're staying in Soul Society now?"

Ichigo was too far away to hear him, having raced upstairs again to where Grimmjow was pounding the floor with one hand out of sheer agony.

"Dunno what happened. Think I tore it laughing."

"Just hold still."

"Noise." Byakuya's voice floated up haughtily from where he sat downstairs. Ichigo glared at Grimmjow's pounding fist until it fell still.

"Sorry."

"It's okay. Just stop moving."

"Ow. Oh wow, that hurts. Ow."

"Just…shhh."

"You are a terrible healer," Grimmjow emphasized, squinting his eyes in pain as Ichigo worked in a hurry.

"Well, you're terrible at keeping quiet. Shh!"

"Ow. Talk to me. Distract me or summin…God that hurts!"

Although he could see the visible craze of pain in Grimmjow's eyes from the ruptured wound, Ichigo demanded helplessly, "Drop your voice." So Grimmjow took up banging his hand on the ground again. There was no quieting him. "Grimmjow!" Ichigo whispered, stopping his patch up job to stare at him. He had a piece of bloodied bandage filling both hands as he did so. Byakuya's sigh was distinguishable even from a floor below. "He's gonna make us leave, Grimmjow."

"Hurts like hell though. I don't understand why, I was fine, then I noticed it and it was like…wow! Ow, stop touching it."

"Sorry. Look, just…"

"God, it's on fire. Like…"

"Shush!" Ichigo felt compelled to quiet him, and with crimson-dripping bandages occupying both hands, saw no other way to do it. Ichigo pushed his mouth forwards and connected it to Grimmjow's.

Down below, Byakuya inhaled a calm breath of air as all the hammering of fists and gushing of words lapsed into instant silence.

When Ichigo drew back, Grimmjow's eyes were wide with wonder. "What was that?" he whispered bewilderedly.

"To shut you up." Ichigo assured him, still reeling from why he'd done it. He gazed back at Grimmjow's suddenly motionless position. "Now just…be quiet while I finish this." He made to bind his wound again.

Grimmjow flinched, but his mind was elsewhere. He looked back at Ichigo when he was finished with him and stumbled onto the words he wanted to say at last.

"Did you know you're my first kiss?"

"It…wasn't really a kiss. Sort of…"

"Oh," Grimmjow said disappointedly, dropping his eyes to the floor and then flipping his head up to meet Ichigo's eyes. "Then what was it?"

"Just…a desperate last resort…"

"So that I could stay here?"

"Yeah."

Grimmjow smiled, shaking his head. "So, nothing else, huh?"

"Nothing." Even to Ichigo, the words just rung as false.

Grimmjow didn't voice his next thought though; he just presented an unconvinced smile to Ichigo.

'We'll see.'

{*XOXOX*}

Author's Note

So here's the next(late) chapter! ^^

I have a request…Please leave reviews if you're following this! They seriously motivate me. And we all know, I need motivation…^^

Lol. Please. Seriously. I would love to hear what you liked about the chapter(and what you didn't like!) so please share your thoughts.

Oh, and on a side note…Yes, I do realize Hitsugaya and pretty much everyone else in this story are incredibly OOC. That's deliberate; not much I can do about it considering I chose to do this in a very 'stylized manner', if you want to call it that. ^^ I actually can't take myself too seriously when I write this considering I've just turned Ichigo and Grimmjow homo…lol. But anything else you want to mention, please do!~

Again, thank you to DancingElf for the BETA reading!

And P.S. I apologize if the chapters come out with years in between them, but they need to pass through the lives of me and my BETA reader, both of which are pretty busy! To be fair she's much quicker than I am. ^^

But thanks for sticking with me!

MadeOf Sunshine~

P.P.S. When FF starts changing formatting and leaving out whole sentences and joining words, I want to shoot myself. Please give me a chance to edit this after it goes up when things become illegible .

And forgive me for what cannot be saved: this site has a mind of its own!