Life After You [A Trilogy] – The Present

Believe me I won't stop at nothin'

To see you so I've started runnin'…

All that I'm after is a life full of laughter

Without you God knows what I'd do…

His heart was pounding against his chest, practically rattling his ribcage. His face, however, remained stoic, calm. He couldn't let out his true feelings of seeing the teen there in Hueco Mundo. Grimmjow only kept his focus train on one thought.

What the fuck was the kid doing here?

Curiosity. Confusion. Because that was the only thing in his mind that wouldn't involve him running forward to greet the teen and check over his wellbeing like the lover-in-denial he actually was.

Grimmjow knew that once the kid was here, there wasn't a snowflake's chance in hell he was going to leave without at least some kind of permanent injuries, psychological or physical ones, perhaps both. It would take a retard to still see the optimistic side of things the moment Aizen's eyes rested on the teen. There was nothing he could do. Grimmjow growled at himself mentally.

But there was everything he could try. Yet, he wasn't doing anything except standing there, letting Aizen approach Ichigo with a victorious glint in his eyes. That bastard had to get off his high horse, but there was just no one who could kick him off.

"What a surprise," Aizen said, smiling. "Although I must admit it is not the turn out I have hoped, I am not in protest of it. Tell me, Kurosaki Ichigo, why have you decided to approach me?"

"You know full well why I'm here, Aizen," Ichigo claimed.

Grimmjow raised an eyebrow at the teen's serious and knowing tone. He does?

Whatever it was, Aizen seemed to have acknowledged silently, merely nodding slightly to the teen's word, unwilling to share it with the rest of the crowd, even though Grimmjow wanted so badly to know what secrets lie behind the ex-shinigami's smile and Ichigo's deep frown.

"I understand, Ichigo, that you want something that I have," Aizen said, a gleam in his eyes. "But I have to wonder, what will you give in exchange for it?"

At this point, Ichigo's eyes wandered furtively to the side, to the location that Grimmjow was standing, and Grimmjow blinked accusingly at the teen, as if to say, "What the fuck do you think you're doing? Areyououtofyourfuckingmind?" before Ichigo quickly tore his gaze away. The message didn't reach the teen, or so Grimmjow hoped, because if Ichigo understood why his Espada lover was freaking out behind sheen of sweats and highly professional mask of indifference, then Ichigo was ignoring it.

And Grimmjow didn't like that.

"Would you rather we talk somewhere more private?" Aizen asked, appearing to have caught on and misunderstood Ichigo's wearied glances around the place for distrust. That, or the bastard was faking ignorance. Grimmjow hoped it was the former, but his doubts nagged at him that it was the latter. He was going to go crazy if the conversation continued.

"Yeah, sure."

And the teen dared to say yes. With Grimmjow there. Gaping at him before reeling his emotions back quickly the moment Tousen's blind eyes shifted towards him. For some reason, the man would still know of his hyperventilation despite the fact he couldn't see, and to Grimmjow, that didn't prove that the man was strong, that he was capable beyond all else. No. It proved that he was a freak.

Yeah, Grimmjow was placing blames and stupid insults on others.

Yeah, Grimmjow didn't care that he was.

And during the self-imposed inner conflict, Grimmjow found that Aizen and Ichigo had finished whatever conversation they were conducting in public and was ready to move their secrecy somewhere else.

Grimmjow heard Ichigo bite back a scoff, and it was all he could do not to sprint forward and punch the arrogant overlord right in the face when the man had the nerve to place a hand on the teen's shoulder. Granted, the action was nothing but a simple movement to guide Ichigo forward, devoid of any hint of sexual intentions, but Grimmjow didn't want the bastard to even touch what he deemed as his, or rather, who Grimmjow deemed as important.

"Wait!"

The two men turned towards his direction, and that was when Grimmjow realized that the demand came from him.

Fuck his life.

"What is it, Grimmjow?" Aizen inquired, a tinge of impatience in his voice. Beside him, Ichigo looked utterly shock and apprehensive at the same time. Apparently, the teen had a plan, maybe several, and Grimmjow was ruining them one by one as words continued to float past his lips, having taken sentience and saying whatever they wish to say.

"Don't you think it would be fucking proper to keep things strictly on a business level?" He was sprouting shit. Even he acknowledged that. "I mean, what do you actually have to hide from your espadas that you can't say here? Are we chopped liver? Jeez, there has to be some sort rules against this sort of shit like child labor or human fucking indentured service or something. Fucking hell, am I the only one who have complaints about this crap?"

Grimmjow didn't expect anyone to be on his side, especially when his side was in the process of digging a deep hole of at least six feet underground for burial. But Grimmjow glanced around anyway for support, more to prove a point than anything else. Everybody's gazes were elsewhere. Hell, even Ulquiorra was closing his eyes to the event that was unfolding in the throne room, almost like he was offering a silent prayer to him and that in itself was so rare that Grimmjow actually felt nervous.

Silence was his only companion for hour-long seconds. It was a bad companion; however, Grimmjow would choose it over the blank look on Aizen's face any other day.

"Grimmjow," the overlord began, then pausing, as his sixth espada shoved his hands in his pockets along with the rest of his sanity, attempting to practice nonchalance after the outburst. "You didn't know about this," he stated.

And because he wasn't a pile of ashes on the ground yet, Grimmjow found the guts to reply back firmly. "Know about what?"

Aizen turned to Ichigo then, and Grimmjow's teal eyes followed to watch as the teen brought a hand up to rub the back of his neck, almost seeming sheepish about something.

"You weren't exactly supposed to know…" Ichigo said, hesitant.

Grimmjow's eyes narrowed. "Know about what?"

Ichigo heaved out a breath, closed his eyes, and braced himself, as Grimmjow became almost frozen by the next words that came out of the teen's mouth.

"I was asking for you."

"What. The. FUCK?"

"What the hell, Grimmjow?"

The shout that greeted him was not unfamiliar, and Grimmjow raised his head to see Ichigo glaring down at him upside down. No, that wasn't right. Grimmjow moved to stand, but a pang shot through his leg like lightning the moment he even tried to turn around. He grunted in pain and annoyance, mostly annoyance, before shaking his head and lifting himself up from the ground, bed sheets spread across the floor and ruffled up, like someone had been fighting with it a couple of minutes ago. Grimmjow refused to acknowledge it was him.

"Don't knock my stuff down over some stupid nightmares, Grimm," Ichigo exclaimed with a sigh. He combs a hand through orange matted hair in exasperation before picking up the lamp and books on the floor. "And of course, you would nearly break my nightstand in your fit of rage or whatever it was you were dreaming about." A pause of consideration. "Huh," the teen let out an amused sound, "it just occurred to me that hollows dream."

In all of Ichigo's musings, Grimmjow didn't hear him at all. The Espada could only think back about the horrific and strange whatever-the-fuck-that-was that still hung in the back of his mind like a slide show, playing over and over again until it threatened to give him some kind of internal bleeding in the back of his eyes.

"What was it about anyway?" Grimmjow heard Ichigo asking, and it took him quite a large amount of effort not to burst out into hysterical and disturbed laughter when he saw the teen's curious face.

"Nothing," Grimmjow settled. "Nothing at all." Just you fucking proposing to me…

And to save his own life and let his sanity rest and revitalize, Grimmjow decided to steer the subject very far, far away from what he had just witnessed during his sleep. He wasn't going to talk about it. He wasn't going to even acknowledge it any more than he already had. In fact, it was all just going to disappear if he left it alone for a few minutes more. At least that's what he was hoping for.

To Ichigo's credit, the teen was smart enough to leave the subject be, probably catching some sort of dark humor in Grimmjow's eyes that he didn't wish to approach. Ichigo settled instead for the alternative. "So, tired these days, huh?"

Grimmjow was more than grateful for that and quickly got off the floor as gracefully as he could, propping himself on the bed like how he usually do whenever he visited the teen.

"Yeah," he said, scratching his head. "You can say that. Aizen," and Grimmjow had to pause at this when a particular piece of the stupid dream flashed by his eyes, "Aizen is working us like slaves."

"I thought that's what you guys are."

A glare was immediately sent in Ichigo's way. "Funny. If I weren't after your ass, I would be after your life."

Grimmjow saw a faint tint of red settling on Ichigo's cheeks before the teen brushed it away with a well-placed cough and a wave of hand.

"So, to what do I owe the honor of this visit from Jaegarjaques-sama?" Ichigo asked, sarcasm flying everywhere the room like fireworks. Grimmjow frowned, but didn't push it. He was still trying to forcefully repress whatever was left of that…that.

"You don't have to be prissy about it," he commented. "I came 'cause I was bored. Like always."

"Didn't come because you miss me?"

He was in shock. "What?"

Obviously, Ichigo wasn't going to be as bold the next time he spoke. "I said, 'because you didn't come, you missed something fun.'"

"Bullshit." Grimmjow pressed on, even though the teen was very clearly trying to smack himself in the head in regret for the words he said. "You think I'm deaf? Wasn't it, 'Didn't you come because you wanted to kiss me'?"

"Whoah, no, I said 'miss,'" Ichigo countered in surprise. When Grimmjow raised an eyebrow, the teen brows furrowed and he narrowed his eyes. "It was 'MISS'."

Feeling like this idiotic argument was capable of being dragged on for at least ten more minutes or so, Grimmjow decided to end it with a roll of his eyes and a shrug of his shoulders. "Whatever, shinigami. Now, on to the main event..."

Really, he did came to the living world to see the kid out of sexual frustration and a longing he couldn't exactly place, but Grimmjow wasn't about to admit anything to Ichigo. It was his rights. And it was going to be his mortification if he let his newly found emotions get to him. This was why Ulquiorra warned him, in a weird creepy way of his, to take it easy.

Well, Grimmjow wasn't specifically quoting the uptight Cuatro—in fact, Ulquiorra basically called him trash and walked away to visit the woman after a couple of insults were thrown around, and really, Grimmjow still couldn't believe he caught the bitch looking back at him and say to "sort his fucking life out if he was going to try anything."

Grimmjow assumed that Ulquiorra knew and was talking about Ichigo, since the man had grew a heart approximately two weeks before him and was now all lovey-dovey with someone who he was supposed to keep an eye on (as lovey-dovey as the Cuatro could actually get). If not, then hell if he knew what Ulquiorra was referring to.

"Grimmjow," Ichigo muttered in warning when the teal-haired espada approached him with an intention that didn't quite appeal to him at this time. "I have a paper to finish."

"Do it later." Grimmjow only paused to voice his opinion before moving on, grabbing the teen's shirt and attempting to drag him towards the bed. If the kid resisted any further, Grimmjow was going to fuck courtesy and throw the damn teen on it.

"Look, can't we be normal for once?" Ichigo sighed, but allowed himself to be pull from his desk anyway. He landed on the bed with a small grunt, Grimmjow not far behind, and his eyes traced the rumpled lines of the fabric that Grimmjow made before.

"Define 'normal'."

Lips landed on Ichigo's neck and hands locked with his own, and Ichigo was really finding it hard to continue his thinking process, but there was something he had to say before he was lost in oblivion as always.

"Well, I can't help but wonder," Ichigo said, "You think I'm gonna be able to live normally?"

"Again, you are not clarifying the word." Grimmjow muttered, irritated, but suddenly interested in Ichigo's reasoning more than what he was doing. Seriously, Grimmjow was really finding it hard to refrain himself though, what with the teen lying on the sheets like that with a pinkish layer on his skin and a hazy look in his eyes. However, there was something intense there in those brown orbs, too, if Grimmjow watched closely, and it was bothering him. He paused.

"So, all this is abnormal, eh?" Grimmjow reasoned, pointedly flicking his wrist around the room for the teen to see, including the thin area between them.

"NO. No," Ichigo groaned. "Just…" He paused, considering the thought, like he knew Grimmjow was going to laugh at it and was weighing to see if it was worth sharing at all.

"I want to go to college, you know," Ichigo finally muttered out.

For a moment, there was silence. Then Grimmjow raised his eyebrow and let out a confused sound, questioning him for further explanation. The Espada didn't like being unable to keep up.

Grimmjow's lack of knowledge was probably the only reason why there was no mocking, hysterical laughter yet. "Alright," said Grimmjow, exasperated. "What is that and where did that come from?"

"You know school?"

"Yes, I fucking know what a school is," Grimmjow huffed, clearly insulted by the teen's tone. "But in the middle of this?" He gestured towards the proximity of their bodies with a huff.

"Well, College. We go there for more education…to get smarter…" Ichigo mumbled, ignoring Grimmjow's subsequent pout. "A lot of people go there so that they can live the life they want. My old man. He's able to open the clinic downstairs because of college." A pause. "At least I hope…or else that's going to be problematic. If his license's not even real, oh man…" Ichigo pondered, and then took one look at Grimmjow's unimpressed face before deciding to give up. "God, this is like teaching a child."

"What was that, shinigami?"

"Nothin' really."

Grimmjow wasn't going to let it go. "Fuck yeah that was something. You start off trying to give me a lesson, digress half-way, and then look at me like I'm stupid? Are you trying to pick a fight?"

"No! Jeez, just chill!" Ichigo shouted. Grimmjow wasn't about to calm down, already standing up from his temporary sleeping spot on the teen's bed, ready to pull out his sword.

Ichigo cut him off.

"I was just having this crazy thought, that's all," the orange-haired teen explained quickly. "What it would be like…if you would go to some place normal like that with me."

Hearing that, Grimmjow practically froze, more from confusion than anything, perhaps a bit curious, too, as was his nature.

Ichigo continued on. "No fighting, just…average stuff."

Just that word alone should have made Grimmjow cringe and scowl with all his might, his skin prickling at the thought of the intense boredom he would have to face day after day. Average… He couldn't live like that. As much as he wanted to deny Ichigo's claim of him being an "overgrown cat," it was true to a degree, and Grimmjow, like the feline Adjucas he had been before, hated being fenced in. He needed his freedom, his space…

Grimmjow looked over to Ichigo, and the teen stared back at him with a serious look on his face before turning, dropping his head onto the pillow with a small slump in his shoulders and a sigh. He had given up on his persuasion, it seemed.

But Grimmjow, despite his frustration, knew that Ichigo never gave up on him. The teen could bitch, complain, and gripe all he wanted, but in the end, he would merely scoff and take whatever shit Grimmjow threw at him—though not always kindly, and Grimmjow wouldn't have it any other way.

He pondered.

Honestly, there was no way his life could be boring enough for him to kill himself as long as Ichigo was with him. If he weren't allowed to go on a killing spree, then he would just attack the teen. If he weren't supposed to use violence on humans, then he would just take it out on the shinigamis. Ichigo wouldn't appreciate that, but Grimmjow thought that it would be somewhat more tolerable.

Still watching Ichigo, watching his chest rise up and fall down in a smooth, deliberating motion, Grimmjow couldn't help but think that he wouldn't really mind. After all—and as he thought this, he grinned—he had his punching bag right here. His victim, his sparring partner, his lov—Ichigo, his Ichigo, right here…

"Oi."

When silence greeted him, Grimmjow furrowed his brow and moved to go lay down on the bed right on top of the teen. "OI!"

"Jeez, what!" Ichigo pushed Grimmjow's face away from his ear, scrunching up his face as he checked his hearing. The shout still left a ringing in his head, and Ichigo growled at the blue-haired man, his eyes dangerous.

"I can try."

"What?"

Grimmjow tsked. "I said I'll try."

Seeing the confusion on Ichigo's face, Grimmjow groaned and gripped the back of the teen's neck, pushing their lips together in exasperation. Once parted, Grimmjow had Ichigo's familiar scowl on his own face, nose twitching the smallest amount to mark his slight vexation.

"I'll stay, ok?" muttered Grimmjow. "It's not like I have anywhere else to go…Don't think I'm going to that college place though. Sounds like a hassle."

Ichigo, after a pause, snickered. He never expected Grimmjow to comply, or at the very least, seeming to comply. The man never liked discussing things like this and it perked Ichigo's amusement to see his attempt of a peaceful conversation, one that wouldn't blow up into an argument or a fight. It was invigorating, surprisingly, to see this side of the hollow that vowed he would never change. Or maybe Grimmjow had always carried this part of him inside. Whatever it was, Ichigo was glad.

"Okay," said Ichigo.

"That's it?" The blue-haired man bristled. The reaction was too simple, and Grimmjow grew upset at the one-word answer the teen gave him. "I said all that, and "okay" is what I get?"

Ichigo's eyes were practically smiling.

"Yea," Ichigo said with a grin. His lips then slowly crooked to form something more devious. "If you want something more, you're going to have to do better than that."

Grimmjow let out an incredulous half-scoff-half-laugh that Ichigo could only described as shock and amusement.

"Ho~ Time really has changed," Grimmjow mused. "The uptight shinigami is actually manipulating me for sex…"

Ichigo blushed, scowling immediately. "Don't flatter yourself."

"I didn't." A feral grin flashed through the hollow's lips. "You did. Gotta say, Kurosaki, I really don't mind."

"Shut. Up."

"Make me."

And Grimmjow made his move.

It was so on.

Just like before and definitely would be after.

A/N: End guys, end :) I will try to catch up on Mistaken or work on a new one shot if I have time now that my classes started. Doubt it, but please bear with me, and if you have any ideas, hit me up on pm ;)