Hello. It is me again and I bring a new chapter.

This story is now officially over 10,000 words! Yay!

This is the most I've ever written and shared so THANK YOU to everyone who is here and reading. The comments I get really help me keep going and give me hope that it's not a terrible as I fear it to be.

So, once again, thank you I hope you enjoy the chapter.

~ Phoenix

Chapter Seven

Ichigo

He didn't know how long they spent learning each other's bodies. When they rested together they exchanged words, discovering desires and wants and visions of the future which they would share. Grimmjow asked where'd Ichigo had come from, ventured into the topic of family. Neither of them mentioned the other alpha looming in the shadows. Neither of them wanted to until the night was over and more serious topics became pressing.

The sun had broken through the blinds on the window before they fell asleep, curled up around each other and hearts in sync.

Ichigo sat at the kitchen table and watched as Grimmjow rifled through the fridge for eggs. It hadn't even been a question of who would do it. Grimmjow hadn't looked at him and did what every other alpha did, see him as something that was there to do the simple things they had 'no time' for.

It had been something sitting at the back of Ichigo's mind. And, while all his instincts said Grimmjow was everything right and he'd found his place, everything hammered in to him, from the elders, from his teachers, from the older kids who just like to scare any beta who passed by, wouldn't just disappear like that. Some part of him would always be waiting for Grimmjow to become just like all the rest.

"You alright there?"

Ichigo broke out his own thoughts and nodded. "Just thinking," he said, pulling of the sleeves of the black hoodie Grimmjow had given him to wear down over his hands before leaning forwards and stretching his arms across the table.

Grimmjow hummed, moving over to the countertop by the over with a carton of eggs in one hand and some mushrooms and cheese clutched against his body. "Anything you wanna talk about?"

Ichigo shook his head, then shrugged, then remembered that, with his back turned to him, Grimmjow couldn't see either of those answers. "I don't know. Maybe. It's a lot."

"Too much?"

Grimmjow didn't turn to look at him. He stayed where he was, breaking the eggs into a bowl, but something shifted in the way he stood. Doubt, maybe. Ichigo didn't know, but what he was sure of was that he wasn't going to let himself mess things up before they got past the first post.

Standing up, Ichigo rounded the table to join Grimmjow by the oven. He pushed himself in close and stood there, feeling the same warmth as he had the night before.

"I don't regret it," he said, pulling the chopping board closer to him and ripping open the packet of mushroom, spilling them over the countertop, "I've always been told how things would be for me. This isn't it. I know you feel the pull like I do. This…" He paused, taking a deep breath as his words started to shake. "My mum, she told me stories, things I could only dream of for myself. You hear things about demons finding the other half of their being, but most of the time betas have to settle, have to take what they're offered, and that was it for me." Ichigo turned his head to look into Grimmjow's eyes, trying to push all his feelings out, to share them with the other. "This is everything, but I can't just leave sixteen years of being dictated every moment of my life behind. It's wrong of me. I want to trust you, but until I can let go I'm going to be waiting for all those things to hit me full force from behind."

An arm wrapped around his shoulders and pulled him in closer. "Talk to me. If you need to, if I do something, just say something. I think… I think we'll both need help sometimes. I don't really know how this all works."

Ichigo let out a soft chuckle and pulled himself out from under the arm that held him. Picking up a knife he started to cut the mushrooms into little cubes. "It's normal for people like me to mate at this age. In some ways I was lucky to be given two more years before it actually happened."

"We'll work this out. One day at a time for now, then we'll figure out the rest."

They worked together, each focusing on their own part, but next to each other, taking comfort in the closeness. They barely spoke a word, they didn't need to, and they never got in the way of the other.

The breakfast omelettes were hardly breakfast and much more like lunch. At some point, although nice and filling in their own right, they had decided omelettes weren't going to be enough for the two of them and, after raiding the cupboards, elected to throw together some banana pancakes as well.

The cooking of those didn't go quite as calmly as the omelettes had.

Ichigo had started it, beating the batter with so much ferocity that it sprayed all over the counters. He stuck his tongue out the side of his mouth, watching out the corner of his eye as Grimmjow flipped the omelettes onto a plate and put them in the oven to keep warm. And Ichigo, free of the elders of his family, free of expectations and the need to be mature, let his instinct run through him, the childish ones that ran through him with feline blood. With one last glance at Grimmjow as the alpha straightened back up, Ichigo stopped mixing.

With a flick of a hand, and movements quicker than most humans could follow, he dipped his hand into the bowl and smeared the mix across Grimmjow's face.

Ichigo could barely let out a laugh before Grimmjow was on him, wrapping his arms around his waist from behind as Ichigo tried to escape and responding in kind.

For a while they fought, using anything they could get their hands on as a weapon. The floor became sticky with spilt super and dropped eggs. Hair turned white after flour rained from the sky. Clothes, which had been put on fresh that morning, became filthy as the rolled around on the floor, both trying to pin down the other and win their mock battle.

In the end, neither had the strength to really try anymore, both laughing through the playful growls that rumbled from their chests. They wrapped their arms around each other, Ichigo's head against Grimmjow's shoulder and took deep breaths as they calmed themselves down.

Ichigo couldn't remember when he'd last just had fun with someone without worrying someone would admonish him for acting in an unsavoury manner for his station.

When their hearts had slowed and their breaths came even, Grimmjow turned his head to bury his face in Ichigo's matted hair. "Do you want to finish breakfast before or after we clean this up?" he said.

Ichigo sighed with a smile and tightened his arms around his mate. "I think cleaning can wait for a while."