XIV. Burnt Silver Brushed Lavender Offspring
"And what does she see in him, anyway? He's. . .he's lazy, and. . .and scruffy, ew! And a lech. My last class with him, my last class, he compared feminine. . .fermeninine. . .ferm--" Fong Shaolin's tongue stumbled over the word.
"Fermionic condensates," Rukia supplied.
"Fermionic condensates," the other girl triumphantly enunciated, "to 'dancers doing the horizontal tango,' complete with 'bodily superfluids.' What teacher is supposed to talk like that to their students, anyway? I could get my father to bring a case against him. I could. Sexual harassment en mass. I could."
"I don't think Yoruichi-sama would appreciate that very much."
"She'd get over it. I'd. . .help her."
"Uh-huh," Rukia sighed, cheek slipping downward in boredom off the hand she'd been employing to prop up her head for the past half-hour, during which Shaolin's incessant buzzing had been steadily killing her own. "Eto, Shaolin, exactly how many drinks have you had tonight?"
"Tch!" the other girl hissed through her teeth, waving a blasé hand in the air. "I haven't touched a drop of anything but water! Alcohol hindersh athletic performance, and Yoruichi-sama. . .Yoruichi-sama. . ." Her bottom lip quivered as her eyes brimmed with tears. "She's counting on me! I can't let her down! She's. . .uwaahh, she's just so wonderful!!"
"Ah." Rukia bit her lip, patting Shaolin awkwardly on the back as the other girl slumped forward to bury her face in her hands as she bawled. "Um. . .there, there. . ."
"And you know," a tiny, muffled voice slinked out from the spaces between Shaolin's fingers, "you know what else is wonderful?"
"What's that?"
"Those space cakes. . ."
Oh hell, thought Rukia, realization dawning as her gaze fell upon crumb-flecked paper plates on the low table in front of them in Yumichika's. . .well, she wasn't quite sure what this particular room was called. Nii-sama would know, which was reason enough for Rukia to make every effort not to care.
". . .they're, they're really good. I know I shouldn't, but. . .I'm really hungry. . .could you get me another one?"
"Erm. . .how about a slice of pizza instead? Too much refined sugar will disrupt your energy levels, and Yoruichi-sama wouldn't want you crashing in the middle of training, now, would she?"
Sniffle. "N. . .no. O-okay. Arigatou, Kuchiki. You're. . .you're wonderful, too, a true friend! I love you!"
"Oookay!! Hahaha! Yes!" Rukia laughed nervously as she attempted to extricate herself from Shaolin's sudden glomp of inebriated affection. Between the crying girl's smeared mascara and the almost criminal strength of her wire-thin limbs, it was not unlike being mauled by an anorexic baby panda bear. "Yes, okay, I love you, too -- now it's time for Kuchiki to breathe, heheh. . .Renji!"
The redhead halted mid-step as he passed by the sofa, swayed a little, then turned with exaggerated suspicion.
"Help!" Rukia mutely mouthed.
Glassy reddish-brown eyes were slow to take in the scenario: two girls embracing, both fair and dark-haired and just his type, one for whom he'd formerly carried a torch, and the other who blatantly carried one of her own for, if not the most beautiful, then definitely the hottest female faculty member in school. . .
His grin was equal parts ecstatic and perverted.
He shook his head.
Abarai Renji, you drunken hentai son of a. . .
"Abarai?" Shaolin asked. "What does he have to do with anything?"
Renji's grin faded as Rukia's grew. Well, if he wanted to play dirty, who was she to stand in his way?
"Renji, unlike me, is not wonderful," she said. "In fact, would you believe that just the other day he was ranting to me about how physical education isn't even a proper scholastic discipline, and that Yoruichi-sama doesn't really deserve to be called Sensei?"
In Rukia's favor, it didn't take the influence of psychoactive baked goods to nudge Shaolin's protectiveness of Shihouin Yoruichi into rabid overkill; but, Rukia figured, if Shaolin foamed at the mouth, she might do so in some very entertaining colors.
"He said what?"
Shaolin jerked away from Rukia and whirled like a heat-seeking missile to fix the history T.A. with an incinerating glare worthy of the Japanese flag's rising sun.
"Oh fuck me--" was all Renji chanced to say before bolting.
Shaolin gave chase, and Rukia was hot on both of their heels with an internal cackle worthy of a supervillain -- or at least a ghost-hunting reality TV host. No way in hell was she missing this one. . .
This boy, this boy, thought Gin, was adorable.
They lay naked together on the bed, kissing with limbs tangled as they had many times before while clothed. Izuru was pressed flush up against him, aroused again but barely moving. His hands hovered fixed and clammy against the middle of Gin's back, and he hadn't dared to look down even once since they had shed their lower garments.
And Gin, Gin couldn't not move, couldn't keep his body still or his hands to himself or his tongue from pushing past stiff but open lips. He couldn't wait.
He wouldn't wait.
He was finished, he was fucking well finished with waiting for doors to open and invitations to be issued. Assassins shouldn't even need to knock, let alone be penciled in at their victim's convenience. This wasn't Sousuke's will -- it was Sousuke's fucking fault, his fault for having conditioned Gin's body to respond so severely to acts of "worship," and it was coming back to bite him in the ass. Gin may have been jumping the gun, but it was his gun to jump, his Izuru, here and now and happening. He didn't need to wait, not for Sousuke or anyone else.
Careful. . .that sounds like a rapist's mentality. . .
No -- no no no, it wasn't, he wasn't. Shut up. Shut up.
Shhh.
"Izuru," he said, fingertips tripping over the length of the blond's downy-soft and slender arm. "Izuru-chan, you scared?"
"No."
The lie, he thought, was only made sweeter by its obviousness. Gin could taste it on his own tongue.
"Me neither."
Blue eyes flickered back and forth between red, then looked bashfully askance at the frost-framed window. A sentence uncurled like a worm from Izuru's Adam's apple, "I thought. . .I thought it would be different, is all."
Shut up.
"Different?" Gin echoed against the front of the boy's throat, and wondered how hard he would have to bite down to rip the words back through Izuru's mouth and out of his voice box completely.
"It's just that. . .I guess I sort of assumed you would be the one, you know. . .on top."
Gin's teeth clicked together as his mouth closed just shy of the blond's skin.
He shrugged. "I can be, if ya want."
"No! N-no, it's okay, I can--- I want to do this."
Gin decided against clarifying that what Izuru was thinking was not what he had meant -- that their actual positioning was entirely negotiable, and he would have been more than happy to let the boy relax supine while he did all the grunt work, in a manner of speaking -- but Izuru already sounded too much like he was trying to convince himself, and Gin's grasp of his own certainty was too tenuous to tempt. He could do this. He wanted this, and he could do anything.
He kissed the boy closed-mouthed, then scrambled across the mattress to the bedside table nearest the wall and pulled open its solitary drawer, finding immediately what he was looking for. Ayasegawa-kun really was the most thoughtful host.
Gin could feel Izuru's eyes boring into his back as he squirted a generous amount of something viscous and clear into his palm from a small tube. He rubbed the liquid between his hands to warm it, then nodded at his kouhai.
"C'mere."
"It looks as though we are equally unlucky tonight, my friend," Shunsui sighed as he slumped into the demoralizingly empty seat next to Jyuushirou's.
The biology professor said nothing, his dark eyes still fixated on the door through which his former love had recently passed.
". . .I just don't understand it," he murmured after a moment. "Things were always perfect between us. Our conversations were never boring, our silences never uncomfortable. We never fought. We never even bickered. The sex was incredible. We were happy. And then one day, she was just. . .gone, like mist." He made a vague, wispy gesture with his hand. "Her body was there, but her mind, her heart. . .it was like her feelings for me just evaporated overnight. I don't understand it."
Shunsui toyed with the slivers of half-melted ice that crusted the surface of the remains of the nurse's drink, and sighed. They had been through this many times before. The lines were not only scripted, but worn newspaper-thin from frequent handling. Even so, he recited them faithfully:
"It was Retsu-san's decision, Jyuu-chan. It requires only your respect, not your understanding."
"It has neither," Ukitake hissed. "Love is not a decision, it is not a choice. And anyway, I don't see you 'respecting' Ise-san's militant refusals of your advances."
"Ouch, Jyuu-chan. Touché, but ouch."
"I won't apologize," said the white-haired man, looking away.
Shunsui's brow lifted. "You have been drinking."
Jyuushirou rolled his eyes. The action seemed to roll his mood along with it. His shoulders slumped. He sighed and rested his elbows on the table, tiredly scrubbing his hands through his hair.
"What didn't I do, Shun?" he asked. "What is it I lack? Why couldn't I keep her?"
"A prayer for the wild at heart, kept in cages," Shunsui quoted. "Tennessee Williams."
"I didn't think Western authors interested you."
"They don't. Angelina Jolie-san's tattoos, on the other hand. . ."
"Ah. Of course."
"The point being, Jyuu-chan, that a lioness at rest can be called no tamer than one who is actively hunting."
"I wasn't trying to trap her, Shunsui. Marriage is not a trap."
"Speaking as an eternal bachelor, I beg to differ."
"Is that why you only pursue unattainable women?"
"Look who's talking."
"Ouch, Shun. Touché, but ouch."
Kyouraku smirked, but not unsympathetically. "I only mean that they are called 'the bonds of marriage' for a reason. Much like 'the bonds of friendship.'"
"Oh, so now I tie you down as well? The old ball and chain?"
"Now you're just getting kinky."
Jyuushirou snorted. He plucked Retsu's glass from Shunsui's hand and downed the last of the drink that resided within.
"Marriage is not a trap," he asserted again. "It's. . ."
"Domestication."
"A recombining of the cells of split souls," Jyuushirou argued.
"Like a parasitic twin."
"Like an intraspiritual endosymbiosis. A two-way heart transplant."
"But even when such operations are theatrically successful," said Shunsui, laying a hand upon his friend's shoulder, "there is always a risk of rejection. You're making my point for me, Jyuu. Be it blood or ether, when two types are incompatible, even on a microscopic level invisible to the naked eye---"
"Yes, yes, I know," Ukitake waved him off. "I know. But I'm sick of it, Shunsui. The only time my heart beats faster is when I see her, and I'm sick of subsisting on that. . .that pacemaker. I'm sick of feeling like a respirator's finally given me one precious puff of oxygen whenever I hear her voice. I'm just. . ." He sighed heavily again and sagged against the back of his chair. "Sick."
"Then perhaps you need to stop waiting for a nurse to heal you, and learn to resuscitate yourself."
"And if I can't?" Jyuushirou posed. "If my spirit proves too weak?"
"Then you have your answer. How could you have possibly hoped to stand by her side with your soul hooked up to a hospital bed? You can't depend on one person alone for the survival of your happiness. When a patient cannot breathe on his own, the prognosis is never a good one. Come now." He clapped his oldest friend hard on the back. "A little optimism, eh? You haven't died without her yet. And besides, you still have me."
"You're trying to make me feel worse, aren't you?"
"It's New Year's Eve and in place of a woman I have a lap full of wine that makes it look as though I've been menstruating. In what context could sitting next to me be detrimental to your self-esteem?"
"Well, now that you've brought it to my attention, you are a little embarrassing to be seen with. . ."
"Ha ha. I'm being serious," Shunsui pouted. "You do still have me, and unfortunately you always will. And when you're old and decrepit and I'm still roguishly handsome but finally lonely, we'll take care of each other."
His friend arched an eyebrow. "Are you proposing to me, Shunsui?"
"Of course not. Why buy the paddy when you are given the rice for free?"
Ukitake smiled. It wasn't a large smile, or a particularly enthusiastic one, but Shunsui was easily satisfied -- for tonight, at least. For the moment.
He cast his gaze across the room to where Ise Nanao was conversing with Stuffed Shirt Kuchiki, and frowned when the man interrupted her to take an incoming call on his cell phone. Really, the rudeness of some people. . .
She'd freshened her wine glass, he noticed. White, this time. Hmm.
Byakuya looked mildly distressed. That was a new expression for him. Of course, when it came to Kuchiki Byakuya, the same could be said of any expression. But he was excusing himself, heading for the promenade outside. . .
Shunsui looked back at Jyuushirou.
"Go," the white-haired man said flatly, waving him away. "But know that you'll be sleeping on the couch tonight."
"My eternal resting place," said Shunsui.
"Your death bed."
"Adjacent to yours, Jyuu-chan. Always."
Matsunaka Nobuhiko. . .career batting average .304. . .on-base plus slugging average .957. . .Kokubo Hiro--- oh--- oki. . .
Izuru breathed deeply, forcing baseball statistics to surface from the white spots that hazed his vision as he pushed slowly forward, balanced on his forearms, knees and thighs. Gin's legs were wrapped around his back, helping to steady him, pulling him closer.
. . .average .275, on. . .on-base. . .
Pulling him in.
. . .on-base h-home runs. . .
Izuru blinked hard as the top of his thoughts collapsed and the reality of the situation came crashing through.
They were having sex.
They were having sex, and he wasn't a virgin anymore.
He wasn't a virgin anymore because he was having sex with Gin.
It sounded weird and clinical and unbelievable and amazing, and it was all of those things. The feel of Gin's body around him was all-consuming, like double fists, tight and hot and slick. Izuru could feel Gin's pulse in the narrow length pressed up against his stomach. He could feel the curling of Gin's toes when the older boy's heels rolled into the small of his back, and somewhere in the flood of somesthetic fervor, bafflement tumbled like a bottled message: this was a disdained act?
Of all the awful things people could do, being this way, doing this thing, was considered by so many to be one of the worst? Being gay and in love and showing it in the closest approximation of a conventional standard, when it meant just as much, when it felt just as good (Izuru guessed -- he couldn't fathom the idea that it could feel any better). . .of all the things in the world that could be labeled "wrong," this wasn't it, and he was ashamed of himself for ever having been so ignorant as to blindly believe that it was anything other than a natural expression of the best possible emotion two people could feel for each other.
One of Gin's hands left his shoulder to wrap around an iron vine in the headboard, using it for leverage as he shifted, his body adjusting to the intrusion. Izuru's breath caught at the spark of pleasure even that small movement sent crackling along the wire of his spine, and he knew with dizzy certainty that if he hadn't come once already, it would have done him in.
"A-are you okay?" he croaked, concentrating on his concern and the distracting tickle of his forelock, a few strands of which had become stuck to the corner of his mouth.
Gin nodded. "Yeah, I'm. . .go ahead an' move a little. . ."
Izuru pressed his palms flat against the sheets beneath Gin's pillow and rocked his hips gently, experimentally.
"Like this?"
"More," said Gin, and then, ". . .a lil' more. . .don' worry about it fallin' out, we can always put it back in again."
A spasm of nervous laughter canted Izuru's body forward, making them both gasp.
"Good," Gin praised on the end of a sigh. "Now tilt your hips up a lil' bit. . .---Yeah---" His breath quickened. "Like that -- jus' like that -- I'm good, keep goin'. . ."
The elevator groaned under the weight of decades as it began its ascent to the eleventh floor of Tres Cifras Apartments, one block from the border between Hueco Mundo and northern Rukongai. New graffiti had been added to its dented metal doors, and Retsu read it idly, as one would the back of a cereal box over breakfast. That Gantenbainne Mosqueda was a little bitch overlapped an announcement of Dordonii's status as an okama. Just above the call buttons, Loli loved Menoli (4-ever), and scrawled across the emergency telephone receiver, the contact information of the "infinitely slick" Cirucci Thunderwitch was now readily available to anyone looking "for a good time."
The nurse shifted her coat in her arms and took a small sample tube of mascara out of her purse. She unscrewed the top, painted over the middle four numbers and, for good measure, changed all the ones into sevens.
She didn't attempt to fool herself into believing it a noble act of feminine solidarity. Vandalism was vandalism, be it libelous or charitable, and Unohana Retsu wasn't a saint, even if the majority of her lies could by most be called kindnesses. Nevertheless. . .
She did a great many things "nevertheless." It was, she recognized, her own unquittable habit.
It had certainly been the one at the helm of her actions nearly eight months ago in this very building, when she'd exited this very elevator, walked down the hall, knocked on the door of apartment number 80 and found the purpose of her visit prowling his home with the unlikely innocence of a lion patrolling the inner perimeter of an unlocked cage.
Zaraki Kenpachi was so obvious by nature, and on that day had been so obviously hiding something. He was hardly to first person to see her, think of needles, and cringe away. It would have been remiss of her medical training to discount the possibility of the worst, no matter how loath she was to believe it, and she'd had to ask: was he using again?
At least, she would have asked, had his answer not struck her dumb before she could complete the question.
It really shouldn't have surprised her as much as it did. She'd refreshed her knowledge of drug dependency the the morning of his first day of detox, and while she couldn't have known with any certainty that his body would respond in such a way to his withdrawal, she had been very aware of the potentiality. His opioid receptors, famished from weeks of sobriety, were all but clawing at his pituitary gland for a much-missed rush of morphine (albeit endogenous, and not diacetyl). A riot of testosterone and dopamine in the absence of a prolactin prison guard had fashioned a shank out of his libido with which to brutally assault his common sense. Had any other woman come to his door, he would have reacted no differently.
Nevertheless. . .
She'd hesitated at first. Addicts were advised to abstain from beginning new relationships during their first year of recovery not without cause -- the natural highs of physical intimacy could engender just as potent and unhealthy an emotional attachment as the agents from which they were striving to distance themselves -- but then, she'd reasoned, what of his relationship to Yachiru? Did the same rules apply toward replacing syringes with sex when they were already being replaced by a bunny mobile spinning above a whitewashed crib and a pink hooded bath towel with cat ears sewn onto its cowl?
No, she'd decided. The throne of his devotion was already quite soundly occupied by a princess, with little room left for a queen. She could safely share this with him. She could -- and moreover, she badly wished to. She hadn't planned for it -- not specifically, in any case -- but neither could she deny that she'd wanted Kenpachi to want her, in that state or any other. She'd known very well the way she looked in the dresses she wore to see him. She'd known that the mints she chewed in the elevator on her way up to his apartment held a motive ulterior to the alleviation of a dry throat.
Had she loved him, even then? Yes, she loved very easily; she knew that much about herself. Did she think he loved her, even now?
She didn't know.
She hoped so, but it wouldn't destroy her if he didn't.
She hadn't lied to him that day -- looking for love was a thing she had never had to do. A nurturer by nature, love was simply a part of her makeup. It surrounded her always, in an ebb and flow as effortless as an ocean current, provided one knew how to drift without drowning. Its abundance was without limit, there was no dam tall or broad enough to staunch its feed, and it was a fool's errand to attempt to solidify it without expecting it to freeze.
That had been the trouble with Jyuushirou. Although Retsu believed that his love for her was sincere, she couldn't help but regard it as conditional. She hadn't been able to accept, when he'd presented her with that small velvet box, that it could possibly contain anything so large as eternity. He'd promised to love her forever, and symbolized it with a destructible thing.
She'd never understood the appeal of marriage. It was a dissoluble institution, a legality masquerading as love. Emotions could not be licensed. They did not come with certificates of authenticity, and could not be placed under warranty. The blank line on Yachiru's birth certificate where Kenpachi's name should have been was proof enough of that. Love existed beyond the material. Even when left unspoken, unrequited, unwritten or one-sided, it remained, incurable save for a second stab from the blade that made the wound.
Somewhere in the stitching up of an eighteen-year-old boy, an incision had been unintentionally made in Unohana Retsu's own aquatic heart. She'd initially thought it a shallow cut, one easily bandaged with logic and medical objectivity, securely knitted by time and distance to leave behind the smallest of scars.
She hadn't anticipated that the injury would reopen with the simple answering of a door four years later, but reopen it had; nor that it would be torn irrevocably wider owing to the influence of an infant girl she could consider even less her own than the children with whom she daily dealt.
With whom he also dealt.
That discovery. . .it hadn't gutted her, although it had definitely twisted the knife. She still didn't know which revelation had stunned her more: that he had fallen back into his previous lifestyle -- or that he hadn't. She'd been frightened and furious, but also astounded -- and immeasurably relieved -- when every tox screen she'd subjected him to continued to come back clean. Only two months into his sobriety and he could look at and smell and handle the very substance that had nearly been his undoing without so much as a hungry glance, and he didn't even seem to realize the kind of mental fortitude that took. If it hadn't been illegal and morally repugnant, it would have been admirable. It certainly wasn't normal. He wasn't normal, and if Yachiru grew up to inherit even a fraction of his strength. . .
She was going to be breaking bones right alongside hearts, Retsu thought with a smile. If Kenpachi could learn to see that, to see the best parts of himself reflected in his little girl -- his determination and almost brutal honesty, his intensity, and his capacity for temperance -- then there was no limit to what either of them could become.
And Retsu would do her best to teach him, quietly, secretly. She would do her best to show him that the only way to fight a riptide was to swim parallel to the shore, even if he only came to find that path by following the scent of her bleeding heart in the water.
The doctored elevator doors chimed and opened automatically upon her arrival at the eleventh floor. She made her way down the hall, knocked on the door of apartment number 80, and waited.
It opened a moment later to reveal the purpose of her visit, looking puzzled by her sudden appearance on his doorstep. Quid pro quo, Zaraki-kun.
"Hey," he said. "What happened to your party?"
She lifted one shoulder in a delicate shrug. "My presence was noted."
His eyes traveled the length of her body, taking in the plastic bag of conbini sashimi bentos and cheap champagne hooked around her right wrist, lingering a little longer on the frothy mermaid train of her gown, and the plunging V of its neckline. "In that dress, I believe it."
"And out of this dress?" Retsu asked him.
Kenpachi wordlessly took a step back, his fingers already at the zip when the door closed behind her.
Gin opened his eyes, a puzzled frown knotting his brow. "Why'd ya stop?"
Izuru licked his lips uncertainly. "I-I just wasn't sure if, if I was doing this right," he admitted. "You're so quiet. Even when we make out, you never. . .or am I. . .am I too loud?"
Quiet? It hadn't occurred to Gin to be anything else. Absolute silence was, after all, Sousuke's second commandment; and before that, well. . .
Hush now, boy, hush! or I'll give you a reason ta scream--
Gin muffled the memory with other, louder ones. Fireworks in the form of soft foam spikes sprouted against his mind. An insulating mouth muted an exultant shout that had rattled his thoughts, but never his teeth. Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. Smile, close your eyes, and shhh. Remember the subjectivity of malice and love. One man's concupiscence is another's court order.
But Gin wasn't playing by Sousuke's rules anymore, and Izuru made noises that were positively outlandish compared to Sousuke's ability to mask the sounds of sex with those of a restless, dream-filled slumber; and while Gin enjoyed them as cues of the blond's susceptibility to his touch, the thought of reciprocating had never even crossed his mind.
Izuru made noises that sounded like sobs, and some like laughter. He could somehow choke and pant at the same time. He moaned and cried out at every fleeting feeling of pleasure that glanced off his skin, as if he could call each one back and beg them to stay.
And who knew? Gin mused. Maybe they would. Maybe they did, but he'd never been given leeway enough to ask and find out for himself.
He shook his head and smiled breathlessly. "Nah, you ain't too loud -- an' trust me, you've been doin' everything right. Don't worry 'bout me, just don't stop -- don't stop again. . ."
His eyes slid shut as Izuru began to move again with new purpose. A shuddering breath escaped him, and he tightened his hold on the younger boy's shoulders.
The sounds he made were loosed consciously at first -- a sigh allowed to end in a soft moan, a gasp given greater volume than it normally would have possessed -- but Gin was intrigued -- almost alarmed -- to find that they were quickly becoming involuntary, as if years of bottled up verbalizations had been uncorked with no way to imbibe them back into silence.
He couldn't stop.
Pleasure piled onto him like sand, each vocal vibration a grain of hallowed ground that buried him alive in rapture, and he didn't want it to ever, ever stop.
Izuru watched, astonished by the sudden change in his boyfriend's demeanor. He thought at first that Gin was playing up his reactions for Izuru's benefit, but there could be no faking of the flush that crept its way from Gin's pale chest up his neck to his cheeks, or the sweat that beaded on the silver-haired boy's brow and collected on his sternum and above his collar bones.
Emboldened, Izuru shifted his weight, shifted one arm beneath Gin's nape to hold himself up while doing his best to keep the steadily increasing rhythm and favored angle of his hips unchanged. With his newly freed hand he reached between their bodies and was assured by the sharp arching of Gin's back when he grasped the evidence, incontestable and hard, that yes, he was doing this very, very right.
He touched Gin instinctively, with no real finesse, lacking both the experience and presence of mind to do more than stroke and thumb and lightly twist his hand at random intervals that in no way matched the climbing pace of his thrusts, but that didn't seem to matter. Gin was trembling now and breathing hard. His keens turned high and thin. His thighs were clenched almost painfully tight around Izuru's ribs, and his fingers dug hard into Izuru's upper arm and sweat-damp back as if scrabbling for purchase on a snowy slope.
He was going to come, Izuru realized. Gin was going to come and he, Izuru, was the driving force behind it. His skinny body. His raw, unfledged proficiency.
He could see now some of the reasoning behind Gin's turning everything on its head. There could be no vulnerability without shame, and even here, ostensibly at the mercy of another for the fulfillment of a biological necessity, Gin possessed neither. There was only the coalescing urgency of his own desire, morphing selfishness into pride, burning the indignities of sex to immaterial ash. There was nothing scary about this, this was what people did when they loved each other: they made each other feel good, and fear less.
Gin's face contorted, and his muscles locked up. His body bucked and Izuru heard him hoarsely shout, felt Gin throb in his hand as something hot and wet spattered against Izuru's own stomach and chest.
Izuru stilled and tucked his chin over the crook of Gin's neck, holding the older boy close until the shakes subsided and Gin collapsed back against the pillows, slack-jawed and shallow-breathed. Gin's legs relaxed, but remained loosely hooked around the middle of Izuru's back. The blond wiped his hand off on the duvet, then brought it up to push the sweaty hair out of Gin's face. Red eyes opened, and Gin caught Izuru's hand in one of his own.
For a long moment, nothing was spoken between them; and then, in a scratchy whisper:
"You close?"
Hanging on by a fucking thread, Izuru wanted to say, but couldn't do more than nod.
Gin smiled. "So c'mon, then," he said, and used his legs to rock Izuru deeply forward, both gasping at the sudden renewal of sensation.
It didn't take long. Unhindered by his preoccupation with Gin's pleasure, Izuru allowed his own to overtake him with erratic abandon.
Their hands clasped, he followed Gin's lead, and leapt off the ledge.
"Go. . .shi. . .san. . .ni. . .ichi! HAPPY NEW YEAR!!"
Shuuhei rubbed at his eyes with thumb and forefinger as the other partygoers erupted into cheers around him, their jumpy movements causing his vision to double.
"What's so fuckin' happy about it?" he groused loudly over the noise.
From the other side of the couch, Aoga tsked at him between tokes of a half-smoked marijuana cigarette. "Forget her, man. There're other lobsters in the tank."
"Don't you mean fish in the sea?"
"With all the rich bitches at our school? Trust me, man, it's lobsters."
He passed Shuuhei the joint. The spiky-haired boy puffed on it twice and held the smoke in his lungs.
"But look on the bright side."
"Whussat?" Shuuhei asked with the thin voice of one trying not to breathe.
"At least it ain't crabs."
He choked, spluttering, blackened laughter scorching his throat while Aoga guffawed at his own joke and Shuuhei's expense.
"What's so funny?" demanded Kanisawa, returning from the bathroom, still drying her hands on her jeans.
Aoga shook his head at her. "Nothin', baby, nothin'. Guy talk."
His girlfriend rolled her eyes. "Breasts, then. Aoga, come on. I wanna dance."
The long-faced boy sighed, yawned and stretched, then held out his arm so that she could tug him to his feet.
"Lazy bones," she grumbled, leading him away.
"Don't forget your claw cracker!" Shuuhei called after them.
Kanisawa looked between him and her boyfriend's lecherous grin.
"What's he talking about?"
"Seafood."
"Aoga."
"What? You don't want me in the mood for fish tonight?"
"Pigs. . ."
Left to his own misery, Shuuhei draped his arms over the back of the lounge, closed his eyes and allowed his head to roll back against the cushion.
He looked up again at the feel of the remainder of the joint being nicked from his fingers and a body plopping carelessly into his lap.
Yumichika beamed down at him, glittering like a disco ball.
"Happy New Year, Shuu-chan."
"Get off," he ordered automatically.
"I intend to," Yumichika smirked, and didn't move. He placed the roach between Shuuhei's scowling lips. "Suck."
"Fuck you," said the black--- the red-eyed boy.
"Again," Yumi smiled, sinking lower into Shuuhei's lap, "I intend to."
He murmured happily when Shuuhei grasped his hips and flipped their positions so that Yumichika was the one seated on the sofa and Shuuhei halfway standing above him.
"Not. Interested."
Yumi threaded his legs around Shuuhei's waist with a rapidity the spiky-haired boy couldn't hope to intercede in his current state. He was pulled roughly forward and landed with a grunt against Yumichika's body.
"Let me go, Ayasegawa."
"Make me," challenged Yumi.
Shuuhei's right hand curled into a fist, but remained stationary. He sneered and shook his head in disgust.
"You look too much like a girl to hit."
"Oh? Then I should look enough like one to kiss."
Shuuhei splayed his fingers and pressed his palm against Yumichika's slender chest. "Not where it counts, dollface."
Yumi's mouth formed a moue of disappointment. "So crude, Shuu-chan. And as narrow-minded as I am narrow-hipped."
"Tch. This from the guy who's never judged anyone on anything but their appearance."
"That's an ugly lie, Shuu-chan."
"Oh, that's right, I forgot about Madarame."
The androgyne laughed. "Are you joking? Have you seen Ikkaku naked?"
DO NOT WANT---
Shuuhei threw up in his mouth a little.
"You're shitting me."
"I shit you not. Although alas, he's been rather preoccupied as of late." Yumi's gaze shifted to fall upon Ikkaku and Nemu on the dance floor, who held each other like middle-schoolers: intimately and awkwardly, with feet barely shuffling to the rhythm of a popular ballad being piped through unseen speakers while the Vizored took a much-deserved break.
He sighed. "But really, Shuu-chan, has being Tousen-sensei's little protégé taught you nothing?"
Bloodshot eyes narrowed. "I don't follow."
"How would you judge a potential lover," posed Yumichika, "if you were blind? Would you be so quick to perceive a person's gender and its inherent beauty if you were unable to see the delicious symmetry of an hourglass form, or the well-balanced strength of broad shoulders? Confronted with a voice neither high nor low, and then feeling a mouth upon your own, warm and supple and responsive, before you had a chance to lay hands upon the gender-defining torso or genitalia of the kiss's conferrer, would you be so quick to condemn the possibility of being turned on by someone sighted society would consider non-traditional?"
The words filtered thick as honey through Shuuhei's narcotic-ablated brain. Only one thing about them stuck.
"That's bullshit. You. . .you could make the same argument in favor of kissing a dog!"
"Leave Abarai-kun out of this, please."
"Ayasegawa. . .no. Just because I couldn't see a cock coming does not mean I'd be open to having it shoved up my ass, even if someone shouted 'Surprise!' first in a girly voice. I don't not want to fuck you because I know you're a guy -- I just don't want to fuck you. Yes, you're very 'beautiful.' Yes, you throw great parties, and yes, you're pretty cool to hang out with -- sometimes. When you're not actively trying to ferret your way into my pants. So what exactly is it gonna take to get you to drop this 'Shuu-chan' shit and leave me the hell alone? Because I'm not sure how much plainer I can make myself, or how much more of this I can stand."
Yumichika stared at him through long, feathered lashes, his violet eyes unreadable.
"One kiss, Shuu-chan," he said after a moment. "One open-minded, eyes-closed kiss."
"One kiss," Shuuhei repeated. "Seriously, that's it? One kiss, and you'll cease and desist completely with the Give In to the Gay Campaign?"
"Wherein it concerns you? Yes. One kiss, and my pursuit of you will be no more. Pinky promise." Yumi extended his little finger.
Shuuhei looked doubtful. Something about this proposition didn't feel right -- not that propositions from Yumichika ever did -- but if conceding to it was the only way he would be given the freedom to lead an openly heterosexual lifestyle (and how fucked up was that, anyway?), then. . .
". . .fine," he said, hooking his pinky around Yumi's and giving it a rather more forceful than necessary shake. "Let's get this over with."
The androgyne smiled serenely, removed his legs from Shuuhei's waist and maneuvered himself into a primly upright position.
"Sit down, please," he politely instructed, "and close your eyes."
Warily, Shuuhei sat, eyes shut. He felt the couch cushions dip around his thighs as Yumichika settled again in his lap.
"Hey--"
"For proper leverage only, I assure you."
Shuuhei's nostrils flared, but he didn't push the protest.
It had to have been the pot. If he hadn't been stoned, he might not have been so complacent. The tension between his eyes might not have abated so readily at the feel of Yumi's soft hand smoothing away the angry line that divided them. He might not have tilted his head back -- in fatigue, of course, and in no way intended to give the effeminate boy better access to his mouth at the first soft brushing of lips upon lips. And he had only opened his mouth in the first place to proclaim that that was it, that lips touching equaled a kiss completed, and too bad if Yumichika had wasted his only shot but Shuuhei's end of the bargain had been upheld and would Yumi please get the fuck off him now? It had not, had not been an invitation for a tongue, or--
Shuuhei inhaled sharply as Yumichika exhaled into his mouth, warm and sweet and holy shit, it was the pot -- Ayasegawa was breathing smoke into his lungs, sharing a hit he must have taken from the joint still daintily pinched between his long, thin fingers, and. . .whoa. . .
What? No! Not "whoa!" That was disgusting! It was unhygienic, and gross, and. . .and most assuredly not one of the sexiest things anyone had ever--
A loud bang echoed from the foyer. Shuuhei felt Ayasegawa jump slightly beneath his hands. The kiss broke, and. . .wait, when the hell had his hands ended up on Yumichika's thighs?
"HAPPY NEW YEAR, ASSWIPES!"
That voice. . . thought Shuuhei, exhaling a bluish plume, dazed from the weed and-- the weed.
Yumi drooped forward with an exasperated sigh.
"I cannot forgive them," he muttered into the stupefied boy's chest, then took a composing breath and stood to greet his latest "guests" in the foyer.
The music had stopped, Shuuhei noticed as he followed on unsteady legs. The reassembling Vizored -- hell, the entire party -- seemed to have been hit by an invisible pause button. Every gaze was glued to the six newcomers standing just inside the open doors, whom Shuuhei immediately placed as being the kendo team of Seireitei Academy's bitterest rival, Hueco Mundo High School.
"Well?" asked their teal-haired leader, his lips pulled back into a predatory, catlike grin. "What is this, some kinda fuckin' tea party? No one's gonna offer me a beer?"
"Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez," Ikkaku sneered. "Last time I saw you, you had your ass stuck up in the air an' your face planted in a tatami mat. Almost didn't recognize ya from this angle."
"Really?" said Grimmjow. "I don't remember that at all. It must've happened in your dreams, Madarame. How'd you like that view, anyway? Did ya wake up hard and have to fuck your little girlfriend there from behind so you could pretend it was me?"
Ikkaku tensed, his face going as red with anger as Nemu's did with humiliation. He removed his arm from around her waist and started forward.
"Oh dear," Yumichika sighed. "Still, at least they waited until after midnight. . .excuse me, gentlemen? Gentlemen!" He sidled lithely between Madarame and Jaegerjaquez before the two could meet. "Yes, hello, remember me, your host? The person whose home you are about to turn into a boxing ring? May I just point out one tiny, insignificant detail before this little duel commences?"
"Spit it out, Yumichika," snarled Ikkaku, not taking his eyes off the other captain.
"That's very gracious of you, Ikkaku, arigatou. Now, this" -- He gestured grandly around the large, crowded room -- "as you so adroitly pointed out, Jaegerjaquez-san, is a party. My party, to get particular about it, filled with my guests -- some three hundred of them, in fact -- who have been drinking my booze and enjoying the music I paid for, and having a very good time doing both. You are six crashers who, I assume, seek to disrupt their merriment; indeed you have already done so. Now, all I ask is for a little common -- and I do mean common -- sense and courtesy: that you take this outside, and save yourselves the embarrassment that will doubtless result from being outnumbered fifty to--"
There was a thick slapping noise as Yumichika's jaw stopped working at the behest of a long-haired blond's closed fist. He crumpled to the ground, and remained there.
"Sorry, bro," said the blond, smirking. "TL; DR."
Shuuhei didn't remember willing his body to move, and he was fairly sure that, had he been given enough time to think up an adequate battle cry, "Not the face, asshole!" wouldn't have been it; but the outcome of both -- namely, the hard double crack of the blond's skull slamming into the door and the door slamming shut with the force of it -- was, he had to admit, nonetheless immensely satisfying.
"Thank you, Shuu-chan," Yumi said weakly, holding his jaw and swaying a bit as he was helped to his feet by Ikkaku, "but while that was very chivalrous of you. . ."
One of his hands disappeared into the opposite sleeve of his kimono.
It reappeared a second later, holding a Taser gun.
". . .it was ultimately unnecessary."
Shuuhei's eyes widened.
Grimmjow's did, too.
"Motherf---"
Onstage, the little drummer girl raised and clacked her sticks together. "One two three four---!"
"You know," said Rangiku, idly sipping her Jack and Coke as she lounged on the sofa Shuuhei and Yumichika had previously occupied, "I think this is even better than last year's party. What do you think, Nemu-kun?"
"I wouldn't know," the shy girl murmured, tucking her legs up in the nick of time to avoid their being crushed by the portliest of the party crashers as his bulk smashed the coffee table in front of them to splinters.
"Way to go, Ikkanzakas!" Rangiku called to the brawny brothers who had thrown him. "Shini-tai!" They bowed.
Rangiku toed the unconscious boy's pudgy cheek until he was facing away from them, then winked and smiled at her companion.
"It's not something us girls should have to look at, ne?"
Nemu swallowed nervously. "Um. . .the music is very good."
"Mm," Rangiku agreed. "But I have to say, I think I'm enjoying the light show more."
A small strobe effect in the other room was accompanied by the loud crackle of 50,000 advertised volts and a sputtering scream.
"Although," she continued, pouting, "Gin-chan's going to be so disappointed he missed all this! Mou, I hope he's having fun. . ."
"Izu. . .Izuru-cha-- hah! Nngh--!"
Izuru held Gin's straining hips against the glass wall of the guest room's luxurious private bath, where they had adjourned to clean up and the sharing of a shower had turned into a backtracking of the in-between techniques Izuru's earlier sensual education had skipped over.
He liked it, he decided, strange though it was to realize he had another boy in his mouth, had had him in his hands. It had been a bit awkward at first, until he'd figured out how (with a little instruction from Gin) to keep his lips over his teeth without feeling like an old man who'd lost his dentures, but now that he'd gotten the hang of it, paying attention to the spots he touched that elicited particularly sharp gasps from Gin. . .
"I-Izuru. . .Izuru, I, I'm, I-- o-ohhh--"
. . .he thought he could safely pride himself on having always been a quick study.
He pulled back a little, blinking rapidly at the slightly bitter taste that filled his mouth as Gin moaned and shivered through his release, splayed fingers kinking, their wet tips squeaking against the glass.
Izuru swallowed quickly (before he could think too much about it), then cupped one of his hands, held it under the shower spray and rinsed his mouth before rising to his feet.
"How'd I do?" he asked, smiling a little.
Gin, still somewhat winded and relaxing with his head tilted back against the wall, cracked open an eyelid. "Ya couldn't tell?"
Izuru shrugged.
"Saa," Gin sighed, "Izuru-chan's so needy. . ."
He stepped under the spray, tugging Izuru with him by the hands. The blond lifted his face to the water, which fell softly, like warm rain, against his skin. Gin hugged him, kissed him, and for the first time in two months, Izuru wanted to die. This time, however, the urge was rooted on the opposite side of garden from despair.
It couldn't get any better than this. If happiness had a peak, he wanted it to be a burial mound, with his tombstone standing forever at the top.
They exited the shower when Gin started to complain about the pruney state of his fingertips, and laughed at the still visible imprint of Gin's shoulders, ass and hands in the steam-fogged glass. The linen cabinet was found to be stuffed with fluffy green- and gold-colored towels, and Izuru's eyes drifted tiredly, contentedly shut as Gin took it upon himself to dry him off, beginning with his feet, working his way up his legs, pressing gently against his groin.
"Hey," said the silver-haired boy as the Izuru felt terry cloth ascend his torso and wick away the water that clung to his slim arms. "You're not that sleepy yet, are ya?"
"Uh-uh," Izuru mumbled, swaying a little.
"Good."
The towel was looped around his neck, and he allowed himself to be drawn into another kiss before he was lead out of the bathroom.
"We missed the stroke o'midnight, so ta speak," his boyfriend continued, "but that's no reason ta slack off on formalities. This is Ayasegawa-kun's house, after all."
"Mm." Izuru felt his legs bump against the bed and automatically fell forward, curling up fetal on the sheets (Gin having had the foresight to strip the bed of its soiled duvet on their way to the bathroom).
"Iii-zu-ruuu. . ."
"Hngh."
"Time for wakies. . ."
The sharp squeeze of a thumb and forefinger just above Izuru's right knee startled him fully awake with a squawk.
"Bastard!" he exclaimed, swatting ineffectually at Gin, who danced, crowing with laughter, out of the way.
Izuru glared at him, or tried to -- the urge to smile had never been so strong as it was when he was with the fox-faced boy, and he was gladly still awful at suppressing it.
He crawled up to the head of the bed and made himself comfortable against the decorative pillows, tucking his legs, crossed at the ankles, up to his chest and resting his chin against his knees as he watched Gin peel away the champagne bottle's foil wrapper.
The silver-haired boy sat on the edge of the bed and braced the bottle between his naked thighs as he eased the cork out with damp thumbs. Izuru jumped as it popped suddenly and ricocheted off one of the walls to land somewhere amongst the pile of their discarded clothing. Gin took a swig, then handed over the bottle with the satisfied sigh of the thirst-quenched. He smacked his lips and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
Izuru raised the bottle to his lips and had just begun to take a drink when Gin sharply tipped the base of it into the air, so that he ended up taking a much larger gulp than he'd intended. Sparkling wine spilled down his front and bubbled spicily on his tongue and down his gullet, nearly choking him.
"Maa, look what you did, Izuru-chan!" accused Gin. "An' just when we'd gotten all cleaned up, too!"
"Sorry," Izuru said sarcastically, rolling his eyes.
Gin moved closer, nudging the younger boy's legs down a little to straddle his waist with two wiry arms.
"This is why we can't have nice things," Gin scolded, in a voice that was anything but reproachful. He dipped his head to lick at the trail of champagne that dashed along Izuru's chest.
Neither had noticed how quiet the room had become until the music from the house's lower level started up again, and the partygoers' shouts kicked up a notch in volume.
"Wow," said Izuru. "It sounds like things are really picking up down there."
"Ya wanna head back down?" offered Gin.
Izuru pressed his lips together and worried them meditatively.
". . .no," he decided, a mischievous smile bending the corners of his mouth. "Not like that."
Gin smirked. "That so? I thought you were sleepy?"
"I'm fifteen," Izuru pointed out. "I don't get 'sleepy.'"
"Good thing," said Gin, plucking the bottle from Izuru's hand and placing it on the bedside table, "'cause I'm a downright insomniac. . ."
Renji heaved breathlessly as he powered his way through the snow through sheer force of will, as he was fairly certain he had left his lungs lying shriveled up and twitching somewhere around Yumi's garden shed. Fuck, he really needed to quit smoking. . .
He chanced a look over his shoulder, and groaned. Goddamn, she was persistent! What was it about short chicks. . .?
"She's full of shit!" he shouted at the approaching trees. "I never said anything derogatory about Yoruichi!"
"Then why are you running?!" came the echoing reply.
"Wouldn't you?!" Renji threw back.
"Coward!"
"Crazy bitch!"
He pumped his arms harder, hoping for a burst of speed. Miraculously, he still had his beer. His right sleeve had absorbed about half of it, but those sloshing sounds couldn't only be coming from his stomach. . .
A scream resonated from behind him. Had it been lower in pitch, he might have even called it a bellow. Either way, he recognized it for the warning that it was, and had only a split-second to prepare himself before a pair of small boots planted themselves in his back and sent him sledding bodily, face-first, through the snow.
Stunned, he only just managed to roll out of the way before one of the boots came in for their second attack. It landed with a hard thud on the ground where his ass would have been -- or worse, if he had only turned over.
"Fuck!" he cried, instinctively cupping his crotch at the thought. "What the hell're you tryin' to do?!"
"Ensure the better breeding of future generations?" Shaolin suggested, bent double with her hands on her knees to better catch her breath.
Renji struggled for a response to that, but was only able to fall back on another horrified "Fuck!"
Yoruichi's "ninja warrior" smirked and stood straight again.
"You can stop playing with yourself now," she told him, nodding at his occupied hands. "I'm done."
"Hell no! Not until your ass is in a straightjacket!"
"If you want, I could put yours in a sling?"
"Why," panted Rukia as she approached, "is everyone always talking about butts whenever I enter a conversation?"
Renji shrugged, the movement adding epaulets to the shoulders of his impromptu snow angel. "Just lucky, I guess." He righted himself -- awkwardly, still unwilling to leave himself. . .vulnerable to attack -- and climbed to his feet. "Where are we, anyway?"
"I don't know. . ." Rukia glanced around for familiar landmarks. "Are we even on Ayasegawa-san's property anymore?"
Renji looked up at the stars with a vague delusion of navigatory ability. A clump of snow that had been clinging to the hair at the base of his skull dislodged and slipped underneath his collar to ripple down the length of his spine. He spasmed, jerking forward hard enough to hear something crack, and flapped the hem of his shirt to free the ice before it could get any wise ideas about his waistband.
"Fuck, it's cold!" He glared accusingly at Shaolin. "This is all your fault!"
"My fault?!" she shrilled. "You were the idiot who ran so far without knowing where you were going!"
"Yeah, and you were the idiot who followed me, so who's stupider?"
"Shut up, both of you!" Rukia ordered, sensing that any further backtracking toward the cause of their dilemma would all too quickly lead to her. "It's not like we can't find our way back." She gestured to the winding and roughly hewn path that had been plowed through the white powder behind them.
No wonder Shaolin had managed to catch up to him despite his longer stride, Renji realized -- he'd practically cleared the way for her.
Cold air coupled with situational irony to make his throat feel thick. He hauked up phlegm and spat onto the snow.
"Gross," said Shaolin.
"You know any other methods for getting it out?" the redhead asked. "'cause if you do, I'm all ears -- and all tongue, if it comes to that."
"Renji, don't be. . .you," chastened Rukia. "Let's just head back to the party, get warm, have another drink -- or another cake -- and ring in the New Year without any frostbitten parts falling off."
"Such as Abarai's--"
"Shaolin."
"Tch. Fine. There probably isn't even anything to fall off, anyway. . ."
"Oi! You wanna see for yourself?!" Renji started to unbuckle his belt.
"Go ahead. I could use the laugh."
"For goodness' sake, what are you both, five?" Rukia snapped. "Renji, keep your pants on. Shaolin, stop teasing him."
"Okay, Sousuke. . ."
"Do you want a spanking? --Don't answer that. Just--"
The trio jumped as a police siren suddenly sounded a brief warning blip, chased a moment later by swirling blue and red lights along a previously unnoticed stretch of road just beyond the tree line.
"--run!"
"What, more?" Renji whimpered, legs already moving.
Behind them, the sound of car doors opening preceded that of two foreign pairs of feet crunching through the snow. There had been a time, Renji reflected, when he would have seriously entertained the idea of doubling back and making his getaway in the police car itself, and he ticked off his (in his opinion, very admirable) self-restraint as yet another instance in which his ultimate goal had pushed him to mature.
Fucking Byakuya.
No, his brain corrected, you're not, and him ever finding out about this ain't likely to help make that happen, so keep fucking running, shithead!
And he would have, too, like a bullet train, all the way to Tokyo -- if somebody hadn't relocated the Great Wall of fucking China to stand directly perpendicular to his escape route.
"Son of a bitch!" he swore. "I hate paranoid rich people!"
Shaolin was the only one who looked undeterred. She took a few steps back, got a running start, sprang and scrambled up the wall like a human incarnation of a game of Pong.
"What the fuck, Jackie Chan!" Renji gaped, then glanced at Rukia sidelong. "She's good," he grudgingly admitted.
"Yeah, well, I'm not -- give me a boost!"
Renji dropped down on one knee, and Rukia ascended his thigh and shoulder like steps, ignoring his winded "Oof!" when she vaulted over the top of the wall.
"Stop! Police!"
"Shit!"
"Renji!" exclaimed Rukia from the other side.
"Kuchiki, leave him! He's dead weight!"
"No! We can't just--"
"No, Crazy Bitch is right!" Renji cut her off as flashlight beams zigzagged around his feet like fat terrestrial fireflies. "Just go, I'll be fine! I'll call you later!"
There was a second of hesitant silence, but the clipped "--Okay!" that followed it told him Rukia had caught his meaning.
"Damn it," Renji sighed, and obeyed the voice behind him that ordered him to place his hands on top of his head and turn around.
"Awww, already?!" Rangiku whined. "It's barely one o'clock!"
"What is it?" Nemu followed the busty girl's line of sight to the front door, where a handful of uniformed adults had appeared, looking decidedly unimpressed. "Oh, no. . ."
Rangiku cupped her hands around her mouth and took a deep breath, the buttons on her sweater straining.
"COPS!!!"
There was a moment of crystalized time as the music halted and some six hundred eyes, a few of them blacked out by bruises, swiveled to the front of the foyer.
Then the situation sunk in, the moment shattered, and Rangiku's shout took effect like a gunshot to a herd of cattle. Nemu was curious as to whether or not the word would have produced the same results had it been whispered, if it was something like a dog whistle that only delinquent young could hear. Unfortunately, she hadn't the time to experiment -- if her name was taken, and her father contacted. . .
Nemu suppressed a shudder as she negotiated the stampede -- no simple task, given that it was feeding into multiple exit points, but she hadn't come this far and risked what she had just to run away without even saying goodbye.
She found Ikkaku landing a final punch to a gargantuan redheaded, broad-jawed crasher. One of the bald boy's eyes was the color of an eggplant and swollen shut, but the grin on his face cast doubt upon whether or not he even realized he was injured.
"Madarame-san!"
Ikkaku turned at the sound of her voice. "Nemu-san!" He released his hold on the front of the crasher's shirt, and the huge boy landed with a soft, sandbag-like thud on the floor. "You okay?"
"Yes. I must leave, though."
Ikkaku nodded. "I gotta stay. Y'know, for Yumi."
"Of course. Please relay to Ayasegawa-san that I had a very enjoyable time."
"Aa, I'll tell him. An' I. . ." He hesitated, then blew out a breath and passed a hand self-consciously over his smooth head. "I'm glad. Real glad. Ya know?"
Nemu smiled. Yes, she knew.
Two hours. It hadn't been much, but she had made the time, had manipulated the world around her to birth it into being. It was a concept her father somehow couldn't understand. Her father the scientist, obsessed with the blueprints of the world with no regard for the final product, always running out of time because nothing could ever be seen as finished through eyes blinded by details. He would have dismissed Nemu's precious, precious two hours with the boy she coveted, who was everything she wasn't and who made her feel so. . .human, as a waste, and she nothing more than a stupid girl doing stupid things, all for the sake of a stupid boy, just like all the others. Just like everyone else.
Normality. It was, she thought, the sweetest hypothesis anyone could state about another being. All requirements fulfilled. Moderate. Average.
Acceptable.
A groan rumbled up from Ikkaku's feet as his opponent pushed himself up on arms thick as stalks of timber bamboo. The skinhead sneered and undid the effort with a combat boot to the middle of a mountainous back.
"Stay down, Koopa! Jeez, this guy--"
Nemu's hands on his heated cheeks, softly placed and mindful of his bruised eye, suckerpunched the sentence short. Ikkaku stared down at her, his ordinarily narrow eyes widened by surprise, and dilated.
"Nem. . .Nemu-san. . .?"
It was, she concluded, an adequate first kiss: lips closed but their pressure strong, its duration quick, but long enough for her meaning to sink in like salve. It was, she concluded, achingly, perfectly normal.
"Goodbye, Madarame-san," she whispered, and fled before her bravado could break beneath her feet, following the tail end of the nearest column of her classmates through the south-eastern corridors of Yumichika's labyrinthine home.
She was at the threshold of a lily-laden conservatory almost half a dozen rooms away when a victorious whoop of "LUCKYYYYYY!!" reached her own pinkening ears.
Izuru stood a pace away from the window, watching the procession of cars and kids leave Yumichika's house, some leaping dramatically over hoods to get to their vehicles, others already at the wheel carving flowers and figure-eights into the snow as they swerved around each other and the patrol cars blocking the gate. Those with tires suited for it avoided the driveway altogether and swung around to the back of the house, to unknown exits somewhere across the grounds.
He clutched the sheet he had wrapped around his shoulders a little more tightly.
"Should we hide under the bed or something?"
He heard Gin's amused chuckle before he felt the taller boy's long arms wrap loosely around his midsection.
"Nah, they ain't gonna search this house. They'd be workin' supermarket security for the rest o'their lives by the time Ayasegawa-kun's parents' lawyers got done with 'em. There's too many of us an' not enough o'them for them ta bother nabbin' more'n a couple o'folks who don't got sense enough ta make themselves scarce, but no one's actually gotta leave. Mostly people only run 'cause they like ta think they're gettin' away with somethin'. Makes 'em feel all clever an' dangerous."
"Oh. So, we're safe?"
"Yeah," said Gin, nuzzling the side of the younger boy's throat with his nose. "We're safe. An' besides, it ain't like Sousuke don't unnofficially know what goes on at parties like this."
Izuru inhaled shakily as Gin nipped at and kissed the sensitive curve joining his neck and shoulder. He imagined Aizen watching them from a corner or a closet or through the window, his breath clouding up the glass, and shuddered. Would he know, when they got back tomorrow, what they had done? He was aware that they were together -- he had to be, even if he'd never indicated as much (and was that weird?); if discretion was the better part of valor, then neither Izuru nor Gin had been particularly valiant when it came to their relationship.
But then, what was there for Aizen to worry about, really? They were both boys, so a teen pregnancy was out of the question, and their medical records were up-to-date, proclaiming both to be healthy and disease-free (or, as Gin had put it upon Izuru's earlier raising of the issue of protection, "What's the point? I'm clean an' you're a virgin").
"He's really trusting, isn't he?" Izuru asked. "I mean, to turn a blind eye like that. . .he must really have a lot of faith in us to know our own limits and not do anything too stupid."
"Tch. Trust ain't got nothin' ta do with it," Gin said darkly, a sudden spike of spite fuzzing the outline of his words. "There's nothin' we can do with his permission that we can't do without it. It's all an illusion, Izuru-chan. His power, his authority. . .it's all just make-believe."
"Like running from parties."
"Makes 'em feel all clever an' dangerous," confirmed Gin. "Gets it outta their systems so they don't feel the need ta act out for real. That ain't trust, Izuru-chan. That's mind-control."
Izuru reached up to rake his fingers comfortingly through the soft, short hair at his boyfriend's nape. "You make him sound so scary. I thought you liked him."
He felt Gin shrug behind him.
"Ya don't hafta hate a cobra ta know when an' why it's dancin'. I didn't say that what he does doesn't work. It's just bullshit, is all. How can a thing that ain't even real be scary?"
Izuru smirked wryly. "So Aizen-san's just a monster under the bed?"
Gin hummed a laugh into his ear, then picked the blond up at the waist and swung him around to toss him gracelessly back on top of the mattress. Mummified in the sheets, it took Izuru a minute to work himself free. When he finally did, he found Gin grinning down at him.
"Not our bed," the fox-faced boy avowed, and joined him.
Burnt silver brushed lavender offspring
Sprung from me when first we kissed
You held me quietly; a rush purged me of my past
Opened a desert of diamonds vast
Glinting; and a tiny chorus of swallows
Swung open the door, freed the caged bees and wallows
Swarm geometric patterns on the sun
Eclipse new moon
And tempt my werewolf not to run
Tempt my werewolf not to run
Promise me that you'll cherish
This tarnished
Oh, this tarnished offering. . . -- CocoRosie, "Promise"
A/N: Has anyone ever been to a house party where the whole "oh noez cops RUN!" thing actually happens? Because all I've ever experienced is "blah blah blah, neighbors, courtesy, etc., keep the noise down kthxbai" in an I-Might-Be-On-Cops Voice followed by a few minutes of subdued obedience & then the resumption of boisterous festivities. But it always looks like fun in movies, so it's here. Also, regarding Yumi's Taser -- I know guns are illegal in Japan, but I couldn't find any information on electroshock weaponry, so I just went with it. But if those are prohibited too, well. . .blame Zaraki? ;D
I can't believe I've been writing this thing for more than a year now. . .what a trip. The next installment, in case any One Percent fans might be feeling forgotten, will collect bastardry tax, so please stay tuned.
As always, thank you for reading -- & for sticking around this long. :)