Disclaimer: I do not own BLEACH or any of its characters, this story is merely my own interpretation, a work of fun an curiosity.
Story 4 - Strength
Gin sat awake on the large, comfortable mattress, his legs crossed. The thin, white blanket was thrown lazily across his lap and Shinsou, the wakizashi, rested in its scabbard on his knees. Gin's eyes were closed as always and from his position and his slow breathing he appeared to be meditating.
Grimmjow, with his eyes cracked open and the rest of his face buried in the pillows, was staring at him curiously. The sight of Gin's naked skin tempted and excited him, the scent of last night's sex still lingering in the air tickling his nose. He lifted his head better from the pillows and pressed his cheek against Gin's thigh in a soft, affectionate gesture. He growled quietly for attention, like a cat buffing up against its master for playtime.
"Mm? Something the matter, Grimmjow?" Gin was of course aware of him. He lifted one of his pale hands and rubbed his fingers through the man's aqua blue hair in return for the nuzzle. Grimmjow grinned for the caress, dropping his face back into the pillows. "Come now! What's with that reaction?"
"Nothing." Grimmjow muttered into the pillow. "I'm just feeling... good."
"Ah." Gin placed his sword aside and slid down in the bed to drop a kiss to the man's shoulder. He had thought the arrancar may be embarrassed or awkward in the morning after, but was proven wrong. Then again, he felt the same. Everything felt so natural and just - cliché, but - 'right'. Like pieces of a puzzle easily falling into place and Gin was glad and for this while he didn't want to think of the future. "Hm, you look cuddly when feeling good." He dropped another kiss beside the one before.
"Mmr..." Grimmjow made a soft purry noise at the kisses to his back and arched it lightly. "What were you up to, sitting like that?" He asked as Gin slid up against his side and embraced him. The sensation of their skin rubbing, sticking together with dried sweat of the night before made the arrancar shiver softly and turn his head towards the man. This person claimed him the night before. The thought made him want to squirm some and buff up against Gin better. He was, he supposed, happy.
"I was speaking with Shinsou-han." Gin responded, stroking the line of his spine lightly. The bandages still covered most of Grimmjow's skin and they were dirty with dried blood on the front and at his shoulder stump but he would change them soon enough. The moment he had the will to actually move away from Grimmjow for a longer period of time than two seconds.
"Hn?" Grimmjow pulled his brows together gently in a curious, confused expression.
"My zanpakuto. Ah, that's right... it's different for shinigami." Gin explained, rubbing the cold tip of his sharp nose against Grimmjow's skin. The arrancar squirmed and fought against a grin. Was he ticklish? "While your Resurreción is simply a release of your dormant hollow powers, a zanpakuto more often than not has its individual personality and its own inner world that we can reach by meditation."
"That's like you guys have another person living in your heads." Grimmjow scowled. The concept was unfamiliar to him and he wanted to understand better. "Isn't that weird?"
"It kind of is." Gin agreed with a small chuckle. But Grimmjow was right, it was weird and difficult to comprehend at first that you shared your soul with another entity.
"So? What is this Shinsou like? What's it he does in there? What is that place like?" Grimmjow asked and Gin should have been surprised by his curiosity, but figured it had to be a feline trait.
"Our inner world is a bit tricky. Everything is quite messed up." Gin began, shifting, lifting himself to his elbows as he lay on his stomach beside Grimmjow. "It's an infinite space and there's black sand below your feet in which stars of many colors twinkle. Over your head is a red sky where a white stone castle is built. It has many, many tall towers." He lifted a hand and with a fingertip, caressed the image of the castle on Grimmjow's back. "Like so. And in that castle lives Shinsou-han. He's a young man, a teenager I would say. He has many unique characteristics, like most other zanpakuto souls."
"What does he look like?" Grimmjow wondered, rolling his shoulders a little at the drawing to his back. That felt funny. He liked it a lot.
"He's very tall and very slim. Like a spear, you could say. He has an unusually long neck, brown hair and blue eyes that have slits as pupils. He wears a light armor that seems to be made of silver scales." Gin continued explaining. "And he's quite elusive. He likes to hide in the castle and he pops out here and there to try and scare me. So far he hasn't succeeded but it doesn't seem like he'll ever give up."
"He sounds like a dork." Grimmjow teased with a cheeky grin as he looked at Gin and the man laughed.
"He does, doesn't he? He probably is, but that's alright. It would have been very lonely and very difficult without him." Gin said as he leant in and kissed that cheeky grin.
"Yeah." Grimmjow muttered after the kiss, shifting on the bed and awkwardly scooting closer to Gin. "You're so strange." He said after a moment of silence.
"How so?" Gin asked as he wrapped his arms around his form and embraced him tight yet again. Bare skin touched everywhere and it was warm and comfortable with how it teased them both. He kissed Grimmjow's temple and hummed a soft sound.
"Upon first glance you seem so playful and... almost stupid at times, but you still smell so god damn powerful I expect you to bite Aizen's throat open any second." Grimmjow was quiet now as he spoke. It wasn't a light topic, after all. Nobody talked freely about overthrowing Aizen's reign, despite most of them - the arrancar - sharing the same fear and dislike for the man.
"Aah, I have no intentions of doing that." Gin smiled and lifted a hand to caress Grimmjow's hair again. The arrancar was so relaxed in his arms he almost didn't recognize him. Grimmjow was soft now and looked very content. "I am just another pawn, after all." He hummed and Grimmjow shivered down his spine.
"Your tone of voice says something else." The arrancar muttered, nuzzling his face into the crook of Gin's neck. "Just how strong are you?"
"Hmmm, who knows?" Gin tilted his head and pressed a kiss into the mess of Grimmjow's blue hair. "I sure can't measure myself. It's always someone else who does the measurements, after all. Strength is so relative. Am I strong if I'm able to kill someone? Is that someone weak if he loses to me?"
"Of course!" Grimmjow scowled, lifting his head to stare at Gin's face. "That's how it is, isn't it?"
"I don't think so." Gin reached out and rubbed his fingertips over Grimmjow's down-turned lips. The arrancar drew back at the touch self-consciously and licked his mouth softly. Gin's touch was strange and cold, even now. "You may say I'm very strong because I have killed many but if I lost to someone, would you immediately consider me weak?"
Grimmjow paused to think about that for a while. "...but you can't lose." He eventually said, stubborn as always. Gin wanted to kiss him and hold him tight forever for being so wonderfully himself. "You're strong! I know you are. You're the only one who can rival Aizen."
"Possibly, but who knows for sure? I don't think strength is in the muscle or in the vastness of reiatsu." Gin cupped his face and caressed the remnants of his mask. Grimmjow remembered the touch from the night before and growled softly, something Gin figured was a mating sound. It was a sweet sound and it made him forget what he wanted to say for a few seconds. "...I believe strength is in never giving up on the goals you have set before you." He said finally. "If I didn't have something I wanted so desperately to do, I wouldn't have strength at all, no matter how potent my reiatsu is. But there is something very important I have to do and I would die trying to accomplish it."
Grimmjow grabbed his hand from his face and squeezed it in a clumsy, yet so endearing gesture. "Are you doing it for yourself?"
"Do you think I am?" Gin wrapped his hand properly around the one holding it and he squeezed back softly. Grimmjow sighed, sounding exasperated.
"No. You're one of the good bunch, ain't you?" He grumbled, drawing his hand back. "You're the martyr sort." He scoffed and rolled awkwardly to his other side, showing his back to Gin.
"...it's a desperate goal but I have confidence I'll be able to accomplish it." Gin reached out to touch his shoulder. He bent down and kissed the skin behind his ear lightly. He felt the man tremble and he smiled. "As for being good... I have killed too many to be considered good, Grimmjow. Not a single shinigami is good. We all have the desire to fight and kill. It's a part of our nature because we are born to oppose you, hollows. I never considered myself good. I'm a shinigami. I'm a murderer. When we kill hollows they despair and feel pain like anyone else on the brink of death. To cause that to someone else, regardless of the end results, is cruelty. And cruelty is evil. I don't consider myself or shinigami good. We are simply another side of the coin."
"Idiot." Grimmjow huffed out as he rolled to his back again and glared up at Gin. "Stop saying that shit. You wanna help someone with whatever you have to do, right? What's that if not a goodie-two-shoes' cause?"
"No one asked me to do this. I'm not even sure about my motivation anymore. It's probably just a selfish wish to become a hero." Gin admitted. "I'm not as good as you imagine me to be, Grimmjow. Shinigami aren't so much different from humans. Sin is just a step off the right path and I haven't known a single shinigami who hadn't strayed even once. There's no such thing as a saint."
"Are you just..." Grimmjow narrowed his eyes. "Honestly, dammit. Are you trying to justify us fitting together or something?"
"Ah?" Gin appeared taken aback so Grimmjow snorted. He so gave himself away. Didn't expect the arrancar to see through it, did he?
"You really are an idiot." Grimmjow smirked. "You think I care if it's justified or not? We want each other. That's the only thing I care about. It's not personalities and goals that make people fit together. It's fucking instinct. You didn't decide to claim me last night. It was never your intention, you said it yourself! But it was your desire, I'm god damn sure about that or you wouldn't have put your dick inside me!"
"Well." Gin tilted his head and rested his chin on his hand with an impressed smile. "I'll be damned."
"I ain't worried about you being good or bad or whatever the hell." Grimmjow muttered as he pressed his face into his chest suddenly. He grabbed him with his one remaining arm and... honest to god clung. "Just that... that there's someone else you wanna fight for. It pisses me off. I'm so... god damn jealous of whoever that is! Shit... it's eating me up, you bastard."
Gin remained silent for a long moment. He felt the desperation in Grimmjow's hold on him and he just listened to him breathe against his skin. Then slowly he lifted his hand and buried the long fingers in the arrancar's blue hair.
"In that case..." He said, very quietly, his voice a whisper so it made Grimmjow tense up a bit. "...how do you think I feel knowing that you would fight to the death against anyone because your instinct dictated so?"
"What-"
"If it came down to that, you wouldn't be able to stop yourself to survive for me because your instinct says otherwise." Gin bowed his head and pressed a kiss to Grimmjow's scalp. "Don't worry about Rangiku. She never set my body on fire the way you did last night."
"Why? She ugly or something?" Grimmjow muttered, still squished into his chest, hiding his face from view.
"Oh, no. She's probably one of the most beautiful women in Soul Society." Gin responded honestly and he felt Grimmjow struggle against a pained whine that threatened to break out of him at hearing that. Gin clenched his hand into his hair and pulled him closer with his other arm around his waist. "She just didn't. We've been very close since the first day we met but it never went beyond a fierce sense of companionship on my part. I couldn't... desire her that way, for some reason."
"Did she ever want you that way?" Grimmjow squeezed him tighter with his one remaining arm and Gin smiled. The arrancar was obviously very territorial. Gin saw it as something endearing and he didn't mind being clung to.
"I don't know. Even if she did, I couldn't have responded to it. Lust is a sensitive topic for shinigami. Most of us have no sex drive at all." Gin explained. "And you... you are such a sensual being, I'm not sure if you know it yourself." He tilted his head and pressed a searing kiss into Grimmjow's ear. "Somehow, you drive me mad."
"Dun care how." Grimmjow struggled a little in his arms then finally reached his mouth and kissed him, very clumsy and very wet. "...but am I fucking glad I do." He grinned against his mouth then looked at his face and was caught off guard by those cold, cold blue eyes open again. His grin melted away, his chest squeezed suddenly and his cheeks colored red as he involuntarily began trembling.
"Hm. Before you whine about it, you are also very beautiful." Gin said quietly, holding his gaze fast. His expression was pure and earnest and Grimmjow marvelled stupidly how handsome the man really was. How could he ever think he was less good looking than Aizen? He was leagues above that slick bastard.
But the look in his eyes was what really got to him. Gin's gaze was such an extraordinary chilly blue with that tint of green in it. He had never seen anything like it before. And now for the second time, that cold color seemed to be on fire, only for him. It felt like he was the only creature that could ever draw a reaction like that from Gin. Like he was the only one that really touched him this way. The only one. The most important.
Grimmjow ducked his head and pressed his face into the crook of Gin's neck again. Gin felt him shake as he held him. He tilted his head down and rested his chin on his scalp calmly. The room was very silent, save for Grimmjow's uneven, anxious breathing. Gin closed his eyes again and listened to him struggle against what he knew he desired. That was alright. Let him fight instinct. He would lose anyways, Gin already knew.
Slowly, the arrancar ceased shivering but his breathing was still laboured when he spoke again in a whisper.
"Mark me soon, Gin..."
TBC in next chapter