The sun warmed his skin under the light blanket. He didn't know how long he'd slept but he had a feeling that however long it had been, he didn't have anything else he needed to do right then. He blinked sleepily up at the man he knew was still there watching him as he regained his energy. The beat of a heart different from his own, and yet so familiar, woke him slowly, bringing a smile to his lips.

"Hey." He said roughly.

"Hey yourself, Kitten." The rumbling vibration of deep baritone shook the bigger man's chest under where the strawberry lay.

He pulled himself up, sliding along his lover's body to steal a long-awaited kiss. He rolled his spine, running his hands across thick ropes of muscle. He purred lowly into the kisses, feeling answering hands slip under the blanket to caress his thighs from knee to hip. He followed the lines of Grimmjow's body up over his chest and around behind where his head met the pillow to tangle with the deceivingly soft blue strands behind his slightly pointed ears. He was breathless by the time their lips parted, but it was the good kind, where it meant his heart was racing but he wasn't so lost that the dreaded tickle in the back of his throat could ruin things. He rolled his hips again, feeling an answering stirring beneath him. It had been so long, and oh but he wanted!

"Mmm, Grimm…" He hummed, deliberately grinding himself against his lover, the wide, calloused palms guiding his movements while too-sharp teeth growled around their tugging on his ear.

The marked increase of breathing in his ear gave Grimmjow pause. He wanted to ravish his strawberry kitten more than anything, having missed this closeness and the feel of the mate he knew instinctively was his, but his beloved was ill, worse off than he himself. So he rolled them over, cushioning Ichigo on the pillows, and positioning himself between the orangette's mile-long legs. His mouth found prominent collarbones and sucked small bruises into the skin there, tracing his fingertips down a stomach too thin and concave to be healthy. Ichigo arched his spine into the touches, his eyes fluttering and a moan escaping his lips. He hung onto his lover as the feline Visored brought him higher slowly, a sensual rise from soft kisses to butterfly-light claws.

Already his erection strained the front of his pajama pants, but the blunette expertly avoided it. He even held his own hips away, preventing even the accidental brush of denim against sensitive skin. Instead, he tasted, sucked and bit gently out across the smaller man's shoulder to his bicep, then down to his chest, worshipping both pectorals before flicking the tip of his tongue against a dusky nipple. He brought it to hardness, alternating between licking and nipping with small puffs of air in between.

Ichigo dug his fingers into the thick blue hair, trying to get his lover to move faster, only to fail, overwhelmed by the sensations assaulting his senses. His eyes smoldered under heavy lids when Grimmjow dropped to trace his faded abdominals with his tongue. The blunette's fingers ran up and down his sides, tracing the lines of his freckles, and desire made the feline's already intense gaze that much more enthralling.

It made the Visored break off his exploration to surge back up and capture the younger man's mouth, his hands pulling slender hips up into his lap so they could grind together through their respective pants.

Ichigo clung to his tee-shirt and mumbled against his lips, "S'not fair, y'know."

"Hmm, what is?"

"You're wearing all those clothes, and I'm just in these."

"Should prob'bly fixit huh?"

The blunette snickered, and sat up to pull his shirt off. The ripple of bronzed skin with that massive, trademark, scar down the middle made Ichigo catch his breath in his throat hungrily. He licked his lips and made grabby hands to pull the massive cat back down into his arms.

Crashing together, they rolled like waves on the shore, voices growling at the same time at the pressure between them, but when the orangette went for Grimmjow's fly, a big hand came down to stop him. Confused, amber looked up, his brows drawing together in silent question.

"Let's not rush it, eh? We got all night, and a lotta makin' up ta do."

The words hung for a moment between them, something too easy about the former Espada's smile. Ichigo almost questioned him, but at the last possible second, just as he was getting nervous that his cover wasn't holding, the strawberry gave in, nodding with his hands back up at Grimm's waist. His smile came more naturally then as he re-captured the orangette's mouth with a purr.

Something stirred beneath the surface, some inner voice that wasn't quite words. A pounding of drums to the pace of his heartbeat, and the whisper of wind that wasn't outside rushed in his ears as they devoured each other. There was a calling from somewhere beyond the orangette's current senses, but he knew, because he remembered what it felt like before they'd gone dark, that it was a tugging in that place where his ability to see ghosts had originated. He moaned for the way it blossomed behind his eyelids. He couldn't hear it, couldn't grasp it, and when he tried to focus on it, it vanished, but it was there, he could feel it in the way his lover responded under his fingertips that the feline Visored felt it too.

For all his bluster of taking it slow, Grimmjow growled lowly, panting against Ichigo's pulse, drawing his scent deeper and deeper with each breath. For the first time in longer than he cared to think about, he felt the stirrings of reiatsu beneath his lover's skin. It made his fingers dance and trace every dip and curve he could find, sucking him in like the starved beast he once had been on the empty sands. He rolled his spine, dragging his chest and hips against Ichigo's, sparks lighting up like the friction of hierro clashing against itself. He could taste the answering soul locked away inside the former Visored.

Another of those delicious moans broke through the orangette's lips as he grabbed a hold on his lover's shoulders. "Grrrimmmm…"

"Mm?" Came the reply in his ear, their hips grinding again.

"I… need…"

"Mmm…"

One of the larger man's hands came down to press against the fabric of his lover's pajamas, massaging in time with his own movements so that the back of his knuckles did to himself what his fingerpads were doing to Ichigo. For several strokes of his hand, all the younger could do was squeeze his eyes shut, panting through an open mouth, wanting more, but it quickly became clear that was all the further the blunette was going to go.

"Grimmmm…" Once again his name was drawn out in a reluctant moan. "Need… mmmmore…"

"Can't." He said unthinkingly.

It made the former Visored stop, frozen and confused. His lover had never turned down sex, in fact he'd been even hinting at it while they'd been apart, several times outright propositioning the strawberry before he got sick. His rationale then had been that it was just sex and it wouldn't mean anything. For obvious reasons, he'd been turned away, but that made this refusal that much more alarming for Ichigo now that, not only was he allowed to ravish the younger man, the orangette was deliberately asking for it.

He placed both hands on Grimmjow's chest and pushed him back, frowning up at him. "What… do you mean… 'can't'?"

The former Arrancar sighed, catching his own breath, and looked away. "I… I mean I can't. We can't. S'not a big deal, we just… s'not a thing… we c'n do… yer not well enough. Ya'll end up coughin' and shit again. Send ya back ta the hospital. I don't wanna… yer dad'll cleanse me straight outta m'skin if I hurt ya. Anymore."

Ichigo outright scowled. The feeling that something wasn't sitting quite right was back, and he was tired of them all keeping whatever it was from him. He scooted himself back, forcing the larger man to sit on his heels, and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Out with it."

Grimmjow met him glare for glare. "Is it wrong ta care 'bout ya? If ya hadn't noticed, ya've been in an' outta the hospital fourteen times since January. An' half th' time s'cuz yer pushin' yerself too hard, an' not restin' when ya should. How do we know yer even cleared for shit like this!?"

"We don't, I'm not, and thank you very much for reminding me just how pathetic I've been lately!"

"That's not what I meant, and you fuckin' know it!"

A thick finger waggled in his face and Ichigo was tempted to bite it. Instead, he bared his teeth, growling, "Is this how you treat all of your lovers or am I special?"

"Of course yer special! But that ain't what this is 'bout neither!" The blunette bit back, coming nose to nose with his lover.

"Then is this some game? Work me up and leave me hanging out to dry while you go pound some floozy in my place? Cause I'm not playing second fiddle to your other hangers-on, Grimm. If I'm your boyfriend, you're gonna treat me like your boyfriend, not just some tart you've picked up because I'm handy!"

Grimmjow growled loudly, "THERE AREN'T ANY OTHERS CUZ YOU AIN'T M'BOYFRIEND, YER MY MATE!"

All ready for another round of screaming and tearing at one another, Ichigo was stunned into silence by the last word, which resonated with something deep and fundamental. They both hung there, the orangette blinking, his mouth hung open slightly. Color rose to the feline's cheeks and he coughed, looking away.

"Yer… my mate." He mumbled, as if confirming it because he'd never said it out loud before. He sank back again, rubbing the back of his neck and scrutinizing the blanket shoved to the side of the bed. "I… meant it. When I said… ya were special. Ain't never had a… a real mate, b'fore. S'a new feelin'. Makes me cautious. Wanna pr'tect ya, an' stuff."

Ichigo reached out and cupped the side of the blunette's face, forcing him to turn back to look at him. "Then why won't you let me love you like I want to?"

"Cuz it ain't safe. Ya could get sicker. Who knows what sorta… diseases… I might've picked up. It wasn't safe, what I was doin'." The cat was dancing around the real answer, a pit in his stomach deeper and colder than the hole he'd worn as an Espada. "Never been scareda consequences b'fore. I just did. If it fucked me over, it meant I didn't do hard enough and I needed ta train more. In the desert, ya either survived, or ya didn't, and if ya didn't, it meant ya weren't strong enough. But this ain't somethin' I can fight. It's so fuckin' tiny I can't put my claws inta it. It just gets inside ya, and it carves ya out. And there ain't nothin' I c'n do 'bout it!"

He reached out and ran his thumb over the depression of his lover's cheek, something unnamed in his eyes.

"I didn't know. I thought it was the same. I came here, an' I didn't listen. And… I picked this fight without thinkin' 'bout my pride. Done that twice now."

The orangette frowned. He didn't quite understand what his lover meant exactly, but there was one thing he'd picked up on. He sat rigidly, a blank mask over his expression, and he took the feline Visored's hand down from his face, though he didn't let it go once it was in his lap between them.

"Grimm, are you…" He hestitated, "Did you catch something?" There was an even bigger, more heavily weighted, pause. "And give it to me?"

Shame, pure and simple, wrote itself across the former Espada's face. He couldn't look at him, he pulled his hand back and tried to climb back away from the smaller man. His shoulders were hunched and his stomach curled inward like he'd been punched. Lying had never been something he was particularly good at, and lying to his mate of all people was impossible. His instincts wouldn't let him.

Ichigo caught his lover's fingers and held him with surprising strength. This was all wrong! Take the egotistical bastard down a few notches, yes, but defeat him entirely?! He had never wanted that. He pulled, distressed more by how willing to be guided the blunette was, and as soon as he was in range, the former Shinigami wrapped his arms fiercely around the larger shoulders, forcing his lover to bury his face in his neck. He smoothed the blue hair with his cheek, putting his mouth next to the feline's ear.

"You didn't know, but you're wrong."

"Hmm." Grimmjow couldn't say anything more from the way his lover had him trapped.

"You do have a heart. If you didn't, it wouldn't hurt right now."

The bigger man started to shaking in his embrace, and for a second Ichigo thought he was crying. Then he was felt the press of teeth, and there were tears, but when the blunette pulled back, he put his hands on either side of his beloved's face, kissing him soundly while fighting a smile. He had joy in his eyes, squinting with how hard he was grinning in between kisses.

"Uhh…"

Frankly it was confusing as hell, but Grimmjow simply laughed, held his lover tighter and purred in his ear. "I love ya, Kitten. There's reasons why Hollows don't take mates ta often, and this right here's the number one, most important thin'. You gorgeous pillar o' strength an' power. If only ya had yer reiatsu still. We'd make such cubs."

"Okay?"

The former Visored wasn't sure if that was a compliment or not, but as he hadn't ever heard of cubs or baby Hollows in any shape other than tortured human souls, he figured that there was a reason for his lover's outburst. So, he simply wrapped his arms around him, and chuckled a little ruefully, catching the blunette's good mood.

"Does this mean we can fuck now?" He teased.

Grimmjow started, pulling back a little, and frowned, "I dunno. I mean… It still ain't safe. It's in m'blood. Doc says if I get cut I c'n infect people." He shook his head at that. "Never thought me gettin' hurt could other people, but this human shit don't make much sense. How come there's somethin' like this at all? Shouldn't ya have some kinda immunity ta this kinda shit, if yer the strongest race in yer world? Never heard of a Hollow gettin' sick like this."

"Like what, Grimm? I can't tell you what's going on, if you don't tell me what you're infected with." Ichigo tilted his head, his mouth screwing up to the side.

"Um… The name don't wanna stick wit' me. Otto Mune Efficiency er somethin'. Think they call it Hate-Eye-Vee?" The feline's tongue tripped over the words, catching them between his fangs with a frustrated sort of growl.

It took a few moments to work out what he could be referring to, but a light came on in the younger man's mind. "Autoimmune deficiency."

"Yeah. That's what they called it. It's s'posed ta be really bad 'nless ya catch it early and take the meds they give ya. I been doin' that, but the doc said somethin' 'bout I ain't s'posed ta bleed on people cuz they could catch it that way."

His lover's tone was nonchalant, if slightly confused, but Ichigo felt like he'd been socked in the gut. No wonder his dad hadn't said anything, and Yuzu kept bursting into tears when she came to see him. The looks they gave him, the way they all fussed over him, the special accommodations from both Mr. Candy Man and the school, even having that mob boss 'buying' him, suddenly everything all made sense. He suddenly couldn't breathe for an entirely different reason as all the pieces fit together with a shattering sound within his head.

A crack of thunder made him jump halfway across the bed, and his vision snapped to the window, where the sunny afternoon had melted into a heavily overcast evening. Rain pounded against the glass, and lightning flashed, illuminating the city in sharp black and white for a second. His chest heaved and he clung to Grimmjow, who seemed to realize what he'd said.

The larger man shifted them both bodily, making small noises under his breath into his lover's ear. His hands roamed over the orangette's skin, touching, scratching lightly, anything to keep the younger male grounded.

"C'mon, Kitten, we c'n fight this. Stay with me. We're workin' on it. We got the meds and the doc says there's a good chance we c'n live with it without worriyin' 'bout anythin', and ya got friends on the other side, ya know." He kept up the litany of encouragement into his kitten's ear, pulling him into his chest and holding him tightly against the storm.

Within Ichigo's mind there was a crack louder than the thunder in the sky above, and under the cacophony surrounding him an insane cackle sent a shiver running down his spine. He dug his nails into his lover's arms, a keen catching in his throat and panicked eyes searching for support in a sea of chaos.

They held like that for a minute, periodically highlighted by the storm. Then Grimmjow threw caution to the wind and kissed his mate fiercely. He slipped his hands under the slender redhead to grip his rear end under his pajama pants. He flooded the reiatsu centers in the former Visored's chest, pushing through the barriers his burnout had built like scar tissue around his chakras.

Ichigo's response was immediate, he moaned into the kiss, his whole body on fire from the inside out. He had no room for thought and gave into the mind rush. He didn't know exactly what his lover was doing, but there was a crumbling sensation like the shattering of an orgasm through his core. He knew intellectually that he hadn't climaxed, but that was all he knew as his mind was flooded with blue the color of Grimm's eyes. Something howled, and wind ripped past his ears. Teeth sunk into his shoulder, and clothing no longer existed. There was pleasure, but there was also pain, the kind of sharp, clean ache that he associated with training.

Another rumble of thunder found the two Hollows entangled in kissing and grinding and crying out in pleasure. The electricity had gone out, though whether that was Grimmjow or the storm was unclear, as he timed his reiatsu pulses with the jumping of lightning from cloud to cloud.

Internally, he felt Pantera prowling his soul as he gripped their bare cocks together. He couldn't penetrate without breaking his hold on his mate, but he could bring them both to climax before he finished kido-blasting his beloved's chakras open. He felt the swell of the orangette's massive reiatsu just under the surface, roiling and churning with the fury of both storm and sea, a wildfire battering against the barriers with a will of its own. How he longed to feel it licking his skin again! Even in battle, he'd known that this spitfire hybrid was truly amazing, and if they were going to die, then he'd be damned if they were going to burn out clamped in irons.

Beneath him, Ichigo arched impossibly, his groin in full contact with the other and the space in the center of his chest burning out and down through his body as the soul chain was destroyed with Grimmjow's infusion. He screamed, cracks of light appearing above his face, and the Arrancar pushed harder.

Come on, break!

Higher and higher, more and more, brighter and brighter. The smaller male's hands changed, his nails extending into talons that dug deeply into the meaty shoulders above him, and as the hole filled in with black, so slowly, he bucked up with his hips, tail lashing beneath him. Then it disappeared, shattering into billions of flecks of light that were accompanied by bright red fur exploding from wrists and ankles. Two stripes of white-hot energy carved the air above his face, forcing more into the air, and Grimmjow roared at it.

The creature forcing its way out howled back, thrashing and screaming with rage. White and red and black and anger and so much more. All it needed was just a little more, another push, and it was no longer fighting him, pulling on the blunette's reiatsu like a starving beast. He gasped, body shuddering. All he got in warning was the press of lips against his own, then a reptilian tongue was shoving its way into his mouth, sucking his bottom lip into the other's teeth. Then there was pain and a draining sensation as stars exploded behind his eyes.

Everything swelled to impossible levels, thunder and lightning flashing all around them, the clouds themselves circling the Kurosaki homestead. Then all at once it disappeared, like the inhale of breath before the blast of an atomic bomb.

Hollow screams shattered the storm clouds. All across the city Shinigami and Visoreds in disguise froze, attention brought to the sky unconsciously. The humans with Hollow powers collapsed unconscious under the weight of the spiritual pressure bearing down across Karakura. Even the Last of the Quincy stumbled in his home, his bow flaring to life unconsciously just before it winked back out again, sucked into the void of the soul draining reiatsu from every life he'd ever touched. Silence reigned in the aftermath, the sky crystal clear with brilliant stars, not a single Hollow to be found in the Living World for miles around. It was broken only by the muted sounds of rescue vehicles responding to the various reports of people fainting with no warning.

And in one bedroom, in a remote part of the city, that was very clearly the epicenter of the blast, a large, blue-haired man lay atop his lover, the body he'd been using burned away to reveal his true form; large conical ears covered in emerald fur, white armor plating down his back and over his hips, his hands and feet from the wrists down dyed black with wicked talons, and the crowning detail, the body-length, armor plated, nearly prehensile, black-tipped, feline tail. His breath came in heavy gasps, and his eyes were closed against the head rush threatening to knock him unconscious, but he had to know… had it worked? Was his beloved restored? He felt that flaming reiatsu, but in his own exhaustion, he couldn't tell if it was just what was hanging in the air, or if he had actually accomplished in a few scant hours what the entirety of Soul Society hadn't yet been able to do in the nearly eighteen months they'd been working on it.

It took until dawn for Grimmjow's vision to clear, when it did the sunlight poured in over the place where the feline had been curled up with his mate. And when the orangette's father slammed the door open for his customary good morning; the only sign that there had been anyone in the room was the empty husk, soundless, breathless, and lifeless in the middle of the bed.