This chapter is similar to the others but it's needed to learn a bit about some characters stories and motivations and where things stand. There is also a bit of Ichigo being a dork which is always fun. I hope you like it.
*Warning for mentions of rape-attempt, and a bit of gore, nothing big, but be wary when reading.
The next morning the world awakened covered by a deep mantle of clouds. The fog was dense, crawling from the lake and over the forest around Ichigo's house, and turning everything secretive and eerie. Urahara was nowhere to be seen as Ichigo entered the living room, and Ichigo knew he had probably gone outside to do the things he never told Ichigo about.
He felt irritated by it. By the secrets, by the rules only he had to kept, and by the humid weather. He felt tired of it all.
Still, he followed the routine as a dog well trained. He prepared another quick meal for himself, cared for the garden, and opened the house to the frozen cold air of the mountains. He didn't feel like receiving patients today, he just wanted to hide in his room with some book to brood and feel depressed and hate the world. But that would be selfish. Some of his patients couldn't wait for him to be in a good mood. So he set the tea pots near the fire, his utensils, the books and herbs in the main table and then, he waited in the pressing silence.
It will still be a slow day, with the weather the farmers won't be going to the fields and there will be no mayor accidents, but the dense fog might cause other problems for the travellers and reawaken old pains and wounds.
He sat on his favoured sofa, the one his mother had used and that was worn out and soft under his body, and stared into the sparkling fire as his mind wandered and his emotions shifted. He lost track of time as his mind went back into old conversations. About what Urahara had told him a hundred times. About old secrets and legends of the world. About a certain Dragonclaimed with tired and angry eyes that seemed to be burning from the inside out. The was magic and wonder all around him, things to explore and discover, mysteries to unravel, but today it just feel too far away and distant, problems and wonders he didn't have strength to bother with.
He was so deep into his mind that he jumped when there was a knock on his door.
Frowning, because Urahara normally didn't knock, and because he hadn't been paying attention to the path and the travellers as he should have, we reluctantly stood and approached the door not really in the mood to talk with anyone. He plastered his fake smile on his face, he squared his tired shoulders, and then, he opened the door.
He found a couple he hadn't been expecting.
"Hello, doctor" Nelliel Tu Odelschwanck greeted him cheerfully. Her hair was braided today, with complex knots and soft purple flowers in it, but another pair of black fighting leather were also hugging every curve in her body like a lover's touch. Feminine and pretty like she always was, but also the deadly commander the legends talked about. Ichigo still didn't know how to act around her, the softness and hardness of her just confused him.
She was still so beautiful, both of them were. Their colouring, their attitude, it was like standing next to the royalty of legends, full of power and will. None of the people around this place were like them. It unsettled Ichigo more than it should have. Specially the Dragonclaimed.
Grimmjow Jeagerjaques felt like a sulking mountain of muscle at his sister's back. Wearing again black on black -the sharp uniform, the blowing cape, the polished boots and his blade - he looked like a demon from old past appearing on his door. He however, was also all frowns and dark circles under his eyes today. He looked like shit, a handsome lord, elegant and deadly, but tired and angry beyond reason. He looked exactly like Ichigo himself felt.
Thank god Urahara wasn't here.
"I... wasn't expecting you" he said to the pair, his voice taking on an annoyed edge he couldn't supress today, his smile however didn't falter. Yesterday, the arrogant Lord had gotten out of his house as if he couldn't run away from it fast enough. He had thought it was over, that his problems had ended. He had been mistaken.
"We had a heart-to-heart conversation yesterday," Nelliel explained. "and Grimmy had a change of heart." She shrugged as if all the drama from yesterday didn't matter, and made to step in. Ichigo, stepped away from the door feeling annoyed by them, but knowing there was nothing he could do about it. The Dragonclaimed at his doo glared in his sister's direction as if he too wanted this over with, but finally, he stepped inside his little house.
His presence instantly filled the room, he was muscular and tall enough to be intimidating, but as if that wasn't enough, power and confidence poured out of him in waves. A dragon's raw undiluted power. His deep blue eyes roamed over the whole place as they had done yesterday, wanting to drink in everything with one glance, judging and assessing. They stopped at the doors, the windows, the sharp utensils on the table for a second longer than the rest, but finally he only grimaced at it all as if the whole place was way below his level.
Ichigo felt his temper rising just with that. He however only closed the door calmly, not wanting a scene, and approached Nelliel to take away a jar of strange delicate flowers she was shaking viciously with a child's curiosity.
"This won't work if he doesn't want to be here." He said, the fake smile starting to hurt his face, but still hiding his tiredness and dark mood seamlessly.
Nelliel however smiled at him mischievously. "Oh dear, but Grimmy wants to be here, don't you, brother?"
The dragon lord frowned again in an expression Ichigo was beginning to get used to. Then the man tsked, moved his weight from foot to foot uncomfortable, and finally conceded with a sight. "Yes…I do."
His voice again filled the room, low and dark, full of magic and things that called to Ichigo in a way that was not rational. A dangerous way. Ichigo still rose an eyebrow, not believing even one of those words.
Nelliel however only gripped him by the shoulders and directed him to one of the sofas as if she was the hostess of the house. His brother followed them and sat on the opposite sofa just as smoothly, as if they had done this a hundred times. The big seat looked ridiculously thin with the Lord seated on it, with his big psyche, his furred expensive cape, and the blade on his waist.
Nelliel on her part only perched herself on Ichigo's armchair, looked around as if to asses the situation a final time, and crossed her arms with a satisfied nod. "Now, do your magic, doc."
Ichigo looked at her questioning her sanity for a second. Then he looked at the Dragonclaimed in front of him. Grimmjow stared him back, challenging, almost amused by Ichigo hesitation and disbelief of the situation. It again pissed him deeply.
Fuck it.
"I normally held my consultations in private." he said to both of them.
"I hide no secrets from my sister." the man said.
"It's not like that." he began trying to explain. "It is better for you to…"
"It is fine." the man repeated, a dangerous challenging glint appearing again in his eyes once more, as if he was ready to tear him apart at the barest show of disobedience.
Ichigo wanted to punch his face just because .
Overwhelming. This pair were overwhelming. A force of nature that just smashed into things, a pair used to rule, command, and get things their way. Any other day Ichigo would have fought them, he could also be stubborn, and medicine had its own rules, but not today. Today he was just tired and moody and just wanted to get this over so he could again drink tea into the silence and emptiness of his house.
"Fine," he said, he picked the teapot, dropped some dried leaves into it, not even bothering to see what they were, and seated on the sofa again. "Tell me exactly what is happening to you and why you are here."
The man again frowned. His default expression it seemed. He however was a soldier, and this time he managed to control his body from squirming and flinching at the mention of his 'illness'. He had no obvious body language Ichigo could decipher, which made things even more difficult for him.
"I have nightmares, every night, for hours and hours, I hadn't been able to sleep well for months and it's getting worst and worst." he said. "I also...lose focus on reality sometimes, I see things, old memories that come back."
He might have no obvious body language, but his tone said it all. It was tense and wary, a dangerous animal ready for an attack. However, the things he said coincided with what Ichigo had read on the books about mental trauma, so there was hope.
"Have you felt yourself avoiding things, like places or people you didn't avoid previously?" He asked.
The man stared at him as if surprised. "Yes."
He didn't tell anything however about what he had been avoiding.
"The nightmares, or when you say you see things, are they related with old memories and things that happened in your past?"
A flicker from those blue eyes to his sister. The woman paled, growing still, as if understanding.
"Yes."
Ichigo nodded. He had been right.
"What you have is called post-traumatic syndrome. It happens to people who had suffered a trauma that had shocked or affected them in a big way, the dead of loved ones, violence, betrayals…that kind of stuff. I believe something during the war might have caused this to you."
"I have been at war for years, this only happened recently." the man complained.
"Okay, then have something happened in these past months that could have caused this?"
He saw the men lock up in a second. He was good at hiding his feelings, but Ichigo had also been trained at reading his patients. The tensing of his shoulders, the light tremor in his hands, even the way those striking and hypnotizing blue eyes seemed to glow golden as the pupil shank, were dead giveaways.
The man knew where the problem had begun.
That was good, Ichigo guessed it would speed the process, and it meant the man's mind hadn't blocked the memory and gone into amnesia after it happened. He just needed to accept and rationalize what had happened in order for him to heal.
However, Ichigo also knew they were too early in the process for the man to truly trust him with that kind of story. So, he decided to go in another direction.
"When you have those hallucinations, you talk about? Is there something that triggers them? Some action, a word, or place? Or your nightmares? Is there something all of them have in common?"
The man frowned, as if wondering about it too, as if the thought had never occurred to him before, and just like that, Ichigo saw it happen. One moment the man was frowning, completely uncomfortable with all this but making an effort for goddess knew why, and in the next he was gone.
His body became motionless, not hiding his feelings anymore but truly paralyzed by the terror. His beautiful golden skin turned ashen, his eyes grow distant, golden, terrified, and his breathing, it just completely stopped.
"Grimmy?"
His sister stood up in a second, and Ichigo followed her, ready to pull the man back from whatever he had gone. Touch helped ground these patients the book had said, but you needed to be delicate since some went into shock or aggression. And other's traumas were also caused by way too much touching.
He went to grab the other's shoulder under all that fur, his eyes intently searching for any kind of discomfort. He will give him only a squeeze to ground him back, nothing else. His sister however stopped him. Pushing him away as she herself also stepped back a few paces.
Ichigo frowned at her attitude, but a second after he understood why the woman didn't let him approach.
Grimmjow Jeagerjaques wasn't a normal man after all.
Right before his eyes, the light of the fire where the teapot had been warming turned a dark blue, almost black. The room felt into darkness, an unnatural one, as if not even the weak sun behind the clouds could pierce into it.
The shadows grew deeper, the tension built up, magic cracked on the air, charging, overwhelming Ichigo's senses. And then, with a silent boom, the fire exploded all around them.
Ichigo instantly turned, protecting himself, gripping Nelliel instantly and hiding her on his arms. He expected pain, a burn, the old smell of ashes and smoke he knew so well, chaos, screams…but nothing happened. Nelliel unfolded from his arms and Ichigo looked around warily, the tiredness gone an replaced by harsh alertness.
The whole room around them was covered by blue fire. There was chaos everywhere, his plants and several jars had smashed or were melting on the ground, the herbs had been incinerated, the wooden floors and walls turning a black shade. But them both were perfectly fine. As if the fire had known not to touch them in the slightest.
"He always keeps it under control," Nelliel told him in a sad whisper. "Even during his visions and nightmares he keeps an iron chain over his power." She whispered.
In front of them Grimmjow gasped, stirred, blinked rapidly, and then looked up. No mask or shield covered his emotions this time as surprise registered on his handsome face, then horror as he looked for his sister, and finally deep bitter frustration.
It made Ichigo want to go to him for some reason, for comfort, for shooting, but his body felt paralyzed.
His sister however did approach him, with a soft voice, with care and love in her every gesture. It felt like applying salt on an opened wound. The man stood, his face and blue eyes locking up once more behind an even bigger wall, unreadable and unaffected. His body was as taut as a bow string, radiating anger, rage, a bloodlust so intense it made Ichigo cold. Their little game was over. Without saying anything, he walked to the door and stepped outside giving a loud bang with the door as he went.
The blue flames on the room died just like that.
Ichigo looked around still feeling dumbfounded, his heart beating fast, on edge. The room was a mess, but nothing that couldn't be easily repaired. He might need to make up a few excuses for Urahara, but it was fine. He was fine. It was fine.
He sat on one of the stools he used when working on his patients feeling a bit dizzy.
Nelliel was staring at the door. She looked lost and scared, not of his brother, but of the whole situation. She passed a hand through her face and turned to Ichigo.
"Doctor, I'm...I'm so sorry" she begun.
Ichigo waved a hand. "It's okay, it looks worse than it is, it can be cleaned up and fixed easily."
"I -I will help you." She instantly said, going to her knees and beginning to pick a little mountain of seeds from a hard that had broken with her delicate hands. "I'm sorry."
Ichigo sighed, and also went down on his knees to help her. They poured the little black poppy seeds into a surviving wooden bowl.
"It's okay." Ichigo repeated, the tiredness returning as the alarm faded. He still couldn't muster his fake smile this time, no matter how much he tried. "These things tend to happen with these kinds of patients, I just didn't expect…"
He didn't know what he had been expecting to be honest.
"That he was Dragonclaimed?" Nelliel said with a dry laugh.
Ichigo smiled a bit, this time for real. "Yeah."
He guessed this had been his first time seeing this kind of magic. Or any magic at all. They picked the rest of seeds up and put them on the new bowl while carefully picking the broken shards and dumping them on a trash can. Nelliel however kept on sending him wary glances.
"A-are you scared of him now? Will you keep on treating him after this?" She asked slowly, almost sounding as if she expected Ichigo to quit.
Ichigo looked at her troubled expression... And doubted. This was the perfect excuse he could use, feign fear, and excuse himself from helping the Dragonclaimed. It will be what Urahara would expect of him, what will keep him save, what he been waiting for from the start. But for some reason he couldn't do this.
"I'm not scared." It was the truth. One that surprised him. "I will keep on treating him."
Nelliel let out a surprised gasp and smiled at him with gratitude and something very similar to respect in her eyes. Ichigo busied himself with cleaning the rest of crystal fragments from the floor.
"Thank you." she said. "He is a good man, I swear it, he is not normally so… crude."
Ichigo couldn't help snorting. Then he stopped for a second glancing at Nelliel, but she didn't seem to be matter the fault of respect one bit.
"It is the truth." The sister assured him. "It's the illness what's driving him mad, before it, before it all, he was the best man I have ever met. He...he saved my life when we were kids you know."
Ichigo stood from the floor putting another filled jar on the table. He then went to pick the broom. They will be quicker. There was still the burned patches and the smell, but nothing water, sanding, and an open window couldn't fix.
"What do you mean?" He asked, more for a distraction rather than an actual interest for the story. He didn't really care about the heroics of his patient, no matter how much Nelliel seemed to want him to like his arrogant brother, he had already heard and seen enough. He knew him and Grimmjow were not going to get along, they just needed to survive each other and that will be enough.
He passed the broom to Nelliel, and he picked himself some wet cloth to scrub at the burned patches. She begun to clean the floor practically to Ichigo surprise, as if she had done this before despite the fact that she was a commander and one of the most powerful military forces in the world.
"Do you remember why the war begun?" She asked slowly.
Ichigo nodded. Everyone knew the story. It was the most told tale in all the damn continent.
"The humans, who had been the slaves of the other races for centuries, rose against their oppressors in a revolt. We were still too weak. Then Aizen discovered the dragons, and with their power he got rid of them all." He said, repeating the old tale.
He knew it hadn't been so easy. The real problem had been with the shifters. The Witches and Fae had used human slaves, but they had treated them with respect, almost as family in some cases. It had been the shifters the ones who had abused their power and it had been in the South, their territory, where the revolt had start and still continued to this day. It was said, Aizen won't stop his crusade until the last one of the shifters were dead.
"My brother and I were born in a little village of the South, on the desert border. Before the war or revolt even started." she explained.
Ichigo turned to look at her with surprise. The stories of what the shifters had done to humans before the war were many and dark. The revolt had been more than justified if the rumours were even half-truths. And to be a child during those times, and in that place…
"We don't remember our mother or father, we never knew who they were, no one did at the time, we were treated more like cattle. Breed and raised to work the salt mines and entertain them." She was whispering now, her cleaning stopping. "At first things were fine I guess, we were children, so we did minor labours, cleaning their mansions, washing their clothes, working the fields, little tasks. But as we grew older and out bodies developed the tasks turned harder and harder. Grimmjow was sent to the mines to extract the precious minerals. He worked under the deadly sun and toxic land for days and sometimes weeks, while I was kept on the kitchens along the other women, cooking and cleaning banquets for them as we starved."
Ichigo has stopped what he was doing to listen. He hadn't met many people from the South. And none who had been alive before the revolts. The beginning of the uprising had been bloody and dangerous years in the history of the continent, and not many had survived to tell the tale.
"It was when I was fifteen, when one of our owners took a liking to me." Ichigo blood cooled, suddenly knowing where this was going. "At first there were only touches you see, a few comments and glances, but one day, the owner ordered me to go to the room where he used to throw parties with his friends, and they…" she flinched, frowned, squared her shoulders and said it. "They tried to rape me."
She said with anger, not a victim anymore, but a fighter who had survived and despised her attackers.
"Grimmjow, who was returning from the field to the common house that night, heard my screams, and found me while they were about to do it. He - an eighteen-year-old boy, exhausted and mistreated- butchered five old and powerful shifters barehanded."
She smiled at the memory. It was a cruel smile a mad one but there was pride in it. The kind of pride a terrified girl would have had for her saviour.
She then turned to Ichigo with a shrug.
"The rest is history, we escaped the village with a few more friends, joined Aizen uprising army and soon became his commanders." She said easily, as if it was a thing anyone could do. "But as I said, Grimmjow is a good man, strong and kind...a bit coarse and brute, but you will like him once you get to know him."
Ichigo said nothing, although he doubted it. He could admire Grimmjow and what he had done for his sister and for humanity, but he was also an arrogant asshole that seemed able to piss him off with his sole presence. They won't get along, he repeated himself. They were like oil and water.
He still nodded, and together they kept on cleaning the place. Nelliel kept on trying to start a conversation, but Ichigo was still drained and in a mood so he didn't really say much, and just listened as she told him about the castle and about how different this place was from the South.
After everything was cleaned and arranged and the room didn't smell anymore of burned things, Nelliel smiled thought it. An unburdened one, as if she too had needed to talk and spill her secrets and traumas to him. She was also a warrior after all. She had fought in the field for years…Only to now find his golden brother on the verge of collapsing and without her being able to do anything about it.
So Ichigo did his thing, he listened to her rambling, made her the calming tea with honey, and hugged her tightly once she made to leave. He repeated to her that he will do everything he could to help his stubborn brother, he promised, he swore it to her.
The smile she gave him then was different. Thankful and full of fondness and tiredness.
Then, when she was gone, Ichigo sat again on his couch once more, looking into the crackling fire and only seeing blue flames.
...oOo…
Days passed by without the Grimmjow or his sister appearing in his house. Ichigo felt thankful for it since Urahara was still at home, but on the other hand, he worried. He kept seeing those haunted blue eyes, the tension, the outburst as the man had stormed out between blue flames. He had never abandoned a patient before like this, but there was nothing Ichigo could do about it.
The weather kept on growing darker and darker as the days passed, and it soon started to rain over the valley making Ichigo's patients stay home, and the doctor himself lock himself up his room among his books. He still kept on working when needed, helping the few patients that risked a travel through the heavy rain and muddy paths, or the emergency cases that needed immediate attention. He tended to the growing plants, and subtlety re-stocked the medicine and herbs that had been burned to crust by Grimmjow's attack.
By the end of the week, with no Dragonclaimed appearing by his door even once, and no worried sister or message, Ichigo understood he won't be seeing the man again. The fact made him angsty, he knew it was the best to return to his normal life, but he secretly had longed for the excitement and entertainment the lord and his sister had brought to his life, for the constant fight with the arrogant lord, and for the novelty of the case. Losing his first patient also felt like a personal lost, as if he had failed in some way as a doctor. The thoughts immersed him into a gloom mood.
The weather didn't help him either, Ichigo had always despised the rain, his mother had died on a rainy day, Urahara always left when it was raining, and it always left him drained, as if he needed the sun to live like the plants out there.
Finally, as he had been expecting, Urahara again announced he was leaving. Ichigo thanked it. He wasn't in the mood to be living with another being, and after their last fight things had been tense. The man hadn't noticed that the Dragonclaimed had returned to the house, and neither did he miss the broken jars of missed the herbs and pots. After teaching Ichigo his craft, Urahara had left him to tend to the house and didn't normally involve himself in such matters. He left with another kiss on Ichigo's forehead and no goodbye words.
And so, with no company and with the rain, Ichigo's days stretched and stretched into darkness and boredom.
...oOo…
The last night of the week turned to be a mean one. Cold and dark, with no moon in the sky, it had begun with a heavy frozen rain that had not stopped for hours and that seemed to want to blow the house out of its foundations. The wind roared outside, a beast raging between the old trees of the forest and down from the mountains, and Ichigo cuddled closer to the fire wishing nothing on the garden and no one from the village will suffer harm.
He didn't want to go to bed, he knew he won't be able to sleep with so much noise and drama outside, so he had picked one of his old novels, one he had read a hundred times, and had huddled closer to the fire with a blanket.
What he hadn't expected had been the knock on the door in the middle of the night. Harsh but slow, Ichigo had frowned at it. No patients will risk a travel to his house on this night unless it was urgent. And by that slow and calm calling it was obvious they were in no hurry.
Standing from his warm cocoon near the fire with a grunt, he walked through the room trying to arrange a bit his half-slept appearance. He knew he won't look very professional on his sleeping clothes and bared feet, but no one could expect better of him at this hour. Annoyed with the world and universe, he opened the door to the cold and harsh rain that instantly bathed him from head to toes. He went to curse, but the words died on his mouth as he noticed who was standing there.
Grimmjow Jeagerjaques was soaked to the bone. His black clothes, elegant and expensive were dripping rivulets of water and his hair was plastered to his handsome face darkened by shadows.
Ichigo didn't ask anything, not when he was risking this cold, instead he just stepped away and let the man enter into his room, quickly closing the door behind him. He shivered in his now drenched clothes. Fuck the weather and his horrible luck. He turned to ask his annoying guest what the hell he was doing in here after a fucking week of not even sending a message, but again he stopped short upon noticing his face now illuminated by the fire.
The Lord looked gone. Pale, soaked, and with a vacant glance he looked like a dog kicked out of his home in a cold night.
Ichigo approached him slowly instantly going back and forth on what he knew about traumas and about this man. Maybe he was having another episode, maybe something had happened. He touched the man arm clad in a leather training armour and instantly frowned. He had expected frozen clothes, it was definitely raining ice and pain, but the man was warm to the touch, probably his magic warming him up in some unknow way.
Ichigo shook him a little, gently, non-threateningly.
"Lord Jeagerjaques?" He asked.
The other didn't even move, his blue eyes still on the floor, gold flakes of fire shimmering in them like gold fishes in a pond. Nonresponsive. Ichigo sighed. He didn't know how the man had arrived at his home but here he was, and it wasn't as if Ichigo could kick him out of the house with this storm.
Gripping his arm again, he directed him closer to the fire, but he soon noticed the trail of puddles the huge man was leaving behind on his delicate wooden floor. He cursed again. Of fucking course. He looked at the man again, this time critically. He was a bit taller than him, but he would probably fit in his dry warm clothes.
He wanted to cry. Did he really want to do this? Why him? Why now? The man was unresponsive, his mind clearly far away by his looks, but no matter how much Grimmjow would scream at Ichigo when he woke up from whatever trance he was in, Ichigo just couldn't just leave him like this, looking so miserable. Ichigo wasn't a heartless monster no matter how pissed and worried he had been about this man all week.
He will have his revenge on the asshole, sure, but not today.
Getting closer to the man he begun to unclasp the soaked cape the other was wearing, the thing was cold and lined with fur on the inside. It weighed a ton soaked with the water. Ichigo squeezed the dripping water from it in a pot he used to clean the dishes, hanged it in front of the fire using a chair, and then returned to the man to continue his job.
He unlaced the leather armour of soft and flexible leather over the other's chest, and the protectors the had on his forearms. The pieces were probably already ruined with the water, but he still pilled them near the fire to dry. The other wasn't carrying any weapon today, a thing Ichigo thanked because he really wouldn't know what to do with them. He knew soldiers priced their weapons greatly, and touching them without permission might be disrespecting.
Pulling the wet black tunic over the male's head without his cooperation felt like an effort bigger than it should have been. Ichigo almost wanted to celebrate for how hard it had been, but upon returning from the chair now pilled with way to many garments, Ichigo finally noticed that he had a half-naked Dragonclaimed lord on his living room.
And he wasn't exactly hard in the eyes.
Defined muscles welcomed his surprised glance, muscle upon muscle under scarred and pale skin. He had so many scars he almost looked like a tiger with his deadly stripes. Lethal, dangerous, but so beautiful Ichigo felt himself unable to look away from the wide chest and tight abs. His pretty light blue hair had turned darker with the water and it now felt over his forehead giving him a more humane look, and not the strict hard angles he had seen before. It kept on dripping, water drop after water drop that fell from the hair and travelled down in torso in a look that was pure sin. He still had his head bowed, his eyes distant and haunted, and that sudden vulnerability was making things flutter in Ichigo's gut, things he shouldn't be feeling for a patient.
He was hot. Hot and vulnerable and half naked on his house. A house in which they were alone and trapped thanks to the storm.
He couldn't help the heat rising to his face and ears. Fuck. Taking the sheet, he had been using before to cocoon himself near the fire, he approached the man again, and trying not to focus on the chest, on that sexy muscles, and how submissive the other looked right now, Ichigo started to dry his chest and hair with quick practical touches. He was a professional, he had seen many naked people, he could do this one thing.
Could he really? Grimmjow's body felt as hard and warm under his hands as it had looked, taut and definitely masculine, a warrior ready for battle or a toss in the sheets. Ichigo again whimpered internally and tried not to think, not feel, he was just a doctor treating a patient. He was a damn professional. He knew better.
After drying him a bit more, Ichigo however was faced with a harsh decision: taking off his pants, or leaving him be. He looked at them, soaking wet and ending a pair of boots dirty with mud to the ankles.
They definitely needed to go. He kind of wanted them to go too, Ulrna help him.
He pulled the other by the arm once more ignoring the feeling of his own cold skin against the other warm and pleasing one, and made him sit in one of the chairs. He pulled off the boots and the heavy belt the other was carrying easily. Then, making him stand, he pulled the other's pants down begging to some goddess up there that the other had some kind of undergarment under it all.
He hadn't. Of course, he hadn't.
Noticing his own face now turning scalding hot, and making it a big point not to look ever again at that body for his own god, Ichigo gripped the blanket he had used to dry him before, and covered the other with it to the neck. Then, like a coward, he actually ran to his bedroom to find some clothes and hide for a couple of minutes until the image of the other naked body disappeared from his mind.
He was not so lucky. He had never met someone like Grimmjow, he had never been confronted with such a physique and had never felt his own body responding to it so eagerly. Grimmjow had been big…he hadn't dared look at it but…he just knew it.
He cried at cursed at himself and his virgin ass as he searched in his trunk for clothes. He didn't have many, he wasn't especially rich, and his wardrobe consisted of a pair of pants and shirts that had been fixed repeatedly to fit him as he grew. He picked a lose shirt he used to wear in summer, and the pair of pants that didn't fit him as much as he wanted.
Helping the man into the clothes as he returned felt almost like a torture after it all. Even more now that he knew how the man looked under it all and didn't even needed to look. Appetizing. Edible. Ichigo wanted to hang himself. However, he managed the whole thing and finally sat the man on the cushion next to the fire, and covered him with a blanket from head to toe for good measure.
There, the worst thing had been done, he felt proud of himself. Kind of.
He decided then to pick some food left from his dinner. Some stew he had made with big white beans and a partridge he had caught the other day, a few slices of bread, and the usual ginger tea to awaken and warm the body.
He made the man eat it all. Helping Grimmjow spoon after spoon until the man could finally hold the cup of tea himself with no mayor problems and raise the spoon to his mouth without trembling. He tried to talk him through it all, asking how the food was, talking about the weather, his own boring days, neutral topics that will distract him and don't cause any panic. Finally, with the other fed and warm, he sat in the opposite couch with a cup of tea for himself in his own hands and his book. The Lord's eyes were starting to grow more present minute by minute, that eerie golden glitter disappearing, and the deep blue spreading beautifully full of life and warmth.
They stayed like that for a while, Ichigo reading while the man just stared into nothingness and eventually shipped from his tea. Ichigo waited. Not pressing, not saying anything, just waiting. He was giving up on any advance or explanation, not today and not after whatever had happened. At some point in the night however, as his eyes slowly begun closing, the man finally spoke.
"I can't turn into a dragon." He confessed slowly. "I don't want to turn into a dragon anymore."
Ichigo rose his eyes from the book he had been reading to stare at the man. He was still staring into his cup, his voice barely a whisper in the house, almost inaudible between the storm outside and the fire flickering, but as velvety and full of magic as Ichigo remembered.
"It begun after the last battle. We have been persecuting a legion of particularly violent shifters through the dunes for days. Weeks. We were exhausted and tired of the constant battles, so I decided to transform and fly ahead to see if there was something that could be done."
A pause.
"They were waiting for us, a whole army. They had lured my small battalion into a trap, and upon seeing me on the sky, they taunted me. They had captured a group of…children, woman, and elderly people we had left behind for protection, and before my eyes, they killed them. Beating their bruised and broken figures, cutting their little bodies, and digging burning iron rods into their heads, and letting them scream and scream so I could hear it all…"
Silence spread into the whole room and the shadows seemed to stretch towards them once more.
"…I lost control." Such simple words for such a huge feeling. "When my battalion arrived, I have already killed the whole army. No survivors were left, not even a bit of flesh over burned bone or a drop of blood was left from it all. I had burned them all." he whispered. "I see them every night, melting under flames, cooking inside their armours, the flesh darkening, ashes falling like leaves on the ground. Thousands upon thousands of lives. All gone because I lost control."
Ichigo heart went to the man despite himself, he needed to keep a wall between him and patients in order to also protect himself, but this time it seemed would be impossible. He however now understood what the other was traying to say, and one of the sources of his trauma. It was obvious Grimmjow wasn't angry about the massacre, it had been war, they had been probably prepared for it and the shifters had more than earned that punishment. No, Grimmjow was scared about that lack of control and about how that massacre had happened.
Ichigo had sometimes wondered about it, about how a human mind could survive with a power that had not been designed for it. Dragonclaimed were heroes of the war, but it was now plain clear things weren't as pretty as they looked. They were nothing more than hurt children wielding powers beyond comprehension.
Standing from the couch and putting his book aside, Ichigo knelt in front of the man, and curled his hands around Grimmjow's owns who were still holding the cup of tea. The man flinched but didn't pull back away from him.
"Grimmjow, there had always been weapons and powers of destruction in these lands. Horrible frightening creations. But at the end they are only that, weapons, tools you can decide to use or not. You shouldn't resent your power for existing no matter how big it is, not when it had also helped you protect people. It won't be fair." It was the double edge of such a power, they were terrifying but useful.
Guilt was a burden too heavy to carry. The man lowered his head more, crouching, touching his forehead to Ichigo's and closing his eyes in an intimate gesture that had Ichigo's hearth quickening its speed.
"But I killed them too, the woman, the children, they died because I lost control."
Ichigo caressed the drying wet hair with a soft calming caress.
"If what you told me was true, they were probably in deep pain or currently dying when you arrived. What you did was probably a mercy for them. And even it wasn't, you can't blame yourself for the loss of control. You were deeply shocked, and your mind went on the defensive, I don't believe anyone would have kept rational in that situation."
"I am not anyone." Grimmjow said as if repeating an old phrase. "I am Dragonclaimed, I should have known better."
"Should you?" Ichigo asked seriously, doubting that statement.
The man flinched. "Yeah. I don't know. We talked about our powers, Aizen taught us things, but we never discussed the extent of our abilities, I knew we could do many things, but I never knew we could…"
"Wipe up armies in seconds? Lose control?"
The man gasped. "What if it happens again? What if I am in the middle of my allies? What if I hurt my people? Nelliel? I can't even remember what happened that time, how I summoned such magic, the power just took control and I…"
His breath accelerated, his eyes grew distant again, haunted, the fire flicked in the hearth. Another attack. Ichigo grabbed his face and raised it so Grimmjow stared into his eyes. The position felt even more personal than that subtle head touch form before, eye to eye, way too intimate for a patient and a doctor, but Ichigo couldn't make himself pull apart.
"That won't happen" He said, and he knew it to be true. He remembered the incident of this morning, how the blue fire had never hurt him or Nelliel. Even out of control, Grimmjow had recognised his people, but he also knew Grimmjow won't believe those words. Not after so much time believing himself a monster. "But if you wish I can teach you calming techniques, or focus exercises that you can use when it happens, it will give you back the control."
He had wanted to show those techniques to him anyway, it was little part of treating the whole trauma, and they might give Grimmjow the tools he needed to get over his own fears. The edge he needed to come back.
Grimmjow nodded, the fear and horror in his eyes calming and being substituted by resignation and sadness. He still didn't believe Ichigo's words, but that was okay, he will eventually see, for now the confession and acceptance were enough. More than enough. It was a step Ichigo hadn't even believed the other would ever take.
"Yeah. Thank you" Grimmjow said in a whisper. A little concession. A little peace offering between them. He lowered his face from Ichigo's hands to his shoulder and for a moment he just breathed there.
Ichigo hugged him. Such a big warrior with such a dark story. Ichigo had always know the war from the south had been a nightmare, but it was different to hear the tales from gossiping neighbours and bitter old men, than to see first-hand the scars it had caused in such a powerful people like Nelliel or Grimmjow.
So he hugged Grimmjow, and petted his back, he ruffled his hair and held him as the other slowly calmed and breathed. Healing from such a life might take years, constant comfort, and care. Ichigo might need to talk with his sister, but from what he had seen, the woman had not exactly been untouched by it all either and might need just as much comfort.
He worried.
He knew he had made a promise to Urahara to cut all ties with these people. The Dragonclaimed might trust him now and accept him if just a little, but if he found out who he really was, Ichigo was sure he would not doubt in taking him captive and interrogate him for information. A man who had gone to such extents to save his people, who had killed thousands without regret, will not hesitate with someone like Ichigo. No matter if Ichigo himself was just a half-thing that had not walked the magic land or met the Fae ever. Grimmjow wouldn't care if Ichigo hated his people -a race who had abandoned him and his pregnant mother and then let her die- he would only care about finishing this war that was killing the world.
But still, despite the danger and the whole situation, Ichigo knew he couldn't leave this Lord and his sister. Not after hearing their stories. He might be many things, but above it all, he was a doctor, a healer, he just couldn't leave a hurting patient alone when he could heal him. This weak, turned a blind eye on the problem, had made him sick and angsty, he was not doing it again.
So he kept on caressing the man's back, and when the man pulled away, he joined both couches to make a more comfortable space and made him sleep before the warm fire. And he kept on stroking his soft pretty hair, comforting him even then, until the man felt asleep, and no nightmares seemed to haunt him as he dreamed.
This is not the complete extent on Grimmjow's trauma, okay? This is like, the peak of the iceberg, it goes deeper, but for introductions I believe it's enough.