A/N: (It's at the beginning for a reason.)

This chapter is not for the faint of heart (but then neither were the first two, so if you are faint of heart, you probably aren't reading this far anyway). Also, I apologize for some crude language, but it's there as a contrast. Most of you won't even notice it, but for those who do, sorry—I hope you appreciate it for what it is. That said, on with the story, and please take time to review!

Oh, and kudos to anyone who can guess the line that made me laugh out loud when I wrote it . . . and then consider deleting it six or seven times. And kudos might mean an omake, if you have a good enough (tangential) idea . . . .

Finally, and in case I forget to say it often enough, Bleach belongs to Tite Kubo, not me.

Chapter Eight

Rangiku should have had a glass of wine with dinner. Or eight. She should have had something to calm her nerves so that now, as they walked back into her apartment and she hung up her taichou's coat, she would be too out of it to feel the panic creeping in.

Dinner had been—well, if not wonderful, then really, really nice. Like she'd anticipated, having her taichou's full attention on her was . . . potent. Thrilling and nerve-wracking and this whole evening in a nutshell and she felt like a contestant on a game show when they asked if she could "stand to see more" and she thought the answer might be no. It was just all so much.

And here he was, standing in her living room, expecting to have sex with her, and it was all her idea, but she was terrified. Fragments of memory bounced around in her head. Pain, fear, humiliation. "Taichou, I—" she began, ready to call the whole thing off and be done with it.

She'd expected him to be nervous, too, but he didn't act it. "Matsumoto," he interrupted, voice steady like she wished hers could be. "Do you really think I'm gonna hurt you?"

"No." Not when he was like this.

"Then what are you so worried about?"

"Tai—Hitsugaya-san, I . . . don't know." That was a lie and a cop-out, and his stare told her he knew it. She took a deep breath and tried again, tried to put into words what she tried not to even think about. "This is new for me. I've never had a man be gentle," she said, looking everywhere but at him.

He winced, but tipped her chin down so their eyes could meet. "Relax. Don't be frightened."

"I'm not frightened!"

"Yes, you are, and this was your idea!" he snapped.

"Am not!" Liar. "And so what?"

"So, maybe we shouldn't do this after all!"

The fire in her faded. "You're right," she said, hugging herself.

"Of course I'm right."

"I'm scared. But I'm more scared of what will happen if we don't do this than if we do," she urged, realizing it was true.

"Matsu—" She couldn't let him talk her out of this.

"I know you don't want to do this, but you promised, and I think it's the only way to fix things, and—"

"Matsumo—"

"—don't even try to pretend that you're not scared, too!"

He clamped a hand over her mouth, shutting her up. "I won't. I'm terrified."

She pulled his hand away, shocked. "Then why—"

"I'm afraid of what this is going to do to us. You're afraid of me, right here, right now. Don't be afraid of me, Matsumoto."

"Taichou." Holy shit.

"I'm not going to do anything you don't want me to do, and I'm not going to hurt you." He slid his thumb across her cheek, then cupped the back of her neck and drew her face down to his. "This is supposed to be fun. Are you having fun yet?" With those words, he captured her lips in a sweet, spell-binding kiss.

It wasn't the first time I'm kissing my taichou, ohmigod, I'm kissing my taichou had run through her head. But this time she was kissing her willing, sober, completely in control of himself taichou. And that was a completely different experience.

Where before he had been urgent, forceful and a little sloppy, this kiss was pure slow, sweet exploration. He tested the firmness of her lips, nibbled at the corners of her mouth, slid his fingers through the tiny hairs at the nape of her neck. It was a full sensory experience, and almost . . . playful?

She opened her eyes and he was watching her, and the clash of turquoise on blue was almost too intimate.

They broke apart finally, and somehow they were sitting on the bed in her room. When did . . . it didn't matter. "Tai—um, Hitsugaya-san," she murmured, burying her face in the crook of his neck. She thought she would do anything to feel the cold silk of his hair brush across her heated skin.

He just snorted. "Tell you what," he began, rubbing her back. "Since you can't seem to remember not to call me 'taichou,' how about for tonight you call me 'Toushirou' instead? At least it starts with a 'T.' Besides," he added, almost as an afterthought, "I never intended for you to call me 'Hitsugaya-san' in the first place. It's too formal, and it doesn't suit you."

She couldn't hide her grin. Two years ago, she might have pushed her luck by trying out "Shiro-chan," but not now. The last thing she wanted to do was remind him of Hinamori. "Toushirou," she said, instead, savoring the gift for what it was.

"Rangiku?"

She nodded, burrowing deeper into his shoulder, savoring this third gift, or whatever number it was—she couldn't keep track any more. She just knew she'd been longing to hear him call her by name for years.

His arms wrapped around her and he kissed the top of her head. She'd never imagined he could be so affectionate. They sat like that for hours, or maybe moments, until Rangiku could feel the nerves return and she just needed them to get on with it, for better or worse, but right now.

He must have felt her tense, because he began to murmur to her, consoling nonsense that neither of them really listened to, but the rumbling of his chest under her cheek comforted her nonetheless. This was Toushirou, her taichou whether he wanted the title or not, and she trusted him. Had never stopped trusting him, really. She was just spooked, spurred on by muscle memory to recoil from his touch, haunted by nightmares that were likely worse than reality. This time would be better—already was better—because he was treating her like more than an object, like a person he respected and cared for, which was more than any man had done before.

She wasn't a fool; she knew he didn't love her. But he held her in high regard, and that was the most she could really expect of her stoic superior. So even if the sex was fast and rough and painful again, she didn't think it would matter. Not if he would hold her like this afterward.

"I'm ready, Toushirou," she whispered, kissing his neck.

He pulled away, searching for something in her eyes. He must have found what he was looking for, because finally he nodded, kissing her again as he shifted them so they were lying on their sides, facing one another.

She held on to him, silently begging him to keep holding her, to take her away from this place and reality and let her drift in that dreamlike world she went to when he kissed her.

She was beautiful. And, inside her candy shell of bravery, very, very nervous. He needed her to stop thinking, needed to make her mindless and boneless and brainless with bliss. And get her out of her clothes at the same time, which was easier said than done.

He stroked her back with his fingers, her tongue with his own, deep drugging kisses until she moaned and had to break away, gasping for breath. He trailed his lips down her neck, keeping the intensity ratcheted up, not giving her a chance to pause, to think, to worry.

Her body was intoxicating. The softest, smoothest skin, curves in all the right places. Rosy lips and cheeks and, for once, those bedroom eyes were right at home.

He nuzzled her chin, brushed his lips across hers just for a moment, slid his knee in between her thighs. She shuddered when he touched her neck, didn't seem to notice as he slipped the straps of her dress over her shoulders. She placed a hand on his chest, her touch tentative, and he leaned into it.

"God, yes, touch me," he murmured, taking a break from undressing her to tear off his tie and unbutton his shirt. Her hands slipped inside, stroking the sensitive skin over his abs, and he let out an involuntary moan.

She giggled, and he smiled, and a firestorm was unleashed. He felt the tension in the room snap as she crawled on top of him, stroking his sides, his chest, his neck, his face, trying to see how many noises she could force out of him. He played it up, not even bothering to hide a whimper when her fingers slipped under his waistband. At the same time, he undressed her, knowing she was too distracted to notice and too intrigued to care. Besides, it was only fair, he thought, as she pulled his shirt from his pants and sent it flying over her shoulder. He finally managed to unzip her dress, and it pooled around her hips, where it would remain until he was able to breathe again. She hadn't been wearing a bra, and her breasts were practically in his face, bouncing around as she ran her hands over his body.

He tried not to stare, and even harder not to touch. Her breasts were her most obvious feature, and he knew they were the first thing other men would go for. Hell, they were gorgeous. But he didn't want her thinking of other men, remembering, having second thoughts. So he went for her belly instead, nuzzled the lean muscles of her abs as he stroked his hands up and down her sides, soothing her. Because she'd noticed now, that she was wearing less than he was, and he wasn't sure if her rapid breathing was pleasure or panic.

"Toushirou," she whispered.

He drew back, meeting the uncertainty in her eyes without apology. "It's okay," he whispered in return.

She buried her face in the crook of his neck, her upper body flush with his. Nerve endings stirred as bare skin met bare skin. Weight and softness pressed into his chest, and he choked back a groan as he brushed her hair away from her face, stroked her shoulders.

She didn't seem to have any intention of moving, and she didn't ask him to stop, so he ran his fingers further down her back, traced the dip at the base of her spine, shoved her scrunched up dress down her legs, where she kicked it away. She was fully naked now.

"Still okay?" he asked. He wanted to go slow, but this was ridiculous. If one of them didn't make a move, the morning would come before they did.

She nodded.

"Got any plans while you're up there?"

She shook her head. He snorted. "Mind if I take over, then?"

She looked up at him, then, indecision in her eyes before resolution replaced it and she kissed him. Taking that as assent, he cupped the back of her head, hooked his legs around hers, and flipped them so that she was pressed back into the bed and he was on top, straddling her waist.

She gasped, and he let her up for air, grinning at her.

"You need to train more, Rangiku. You lack stamina."

She smacked his arm. "Shut up. I've been training a lot since you've been gone! You won't even believe how much stronger I've grown! I bet I'm almost to bankai by now!"

His eyebrow quirked. "That so? We'll have to spar soon, then."

He didn't wait for her to respond, but kissed a trail down her belly, then down the outside of her long, long legs, stroking her calves, massaging her feet, and finally running his thumbs up the inside of her thighs, slowly approaching the folds between them.

Her prior experiences hadn't prepared her for this. She'd been touched before, but normally it was tits, ass, fuck, with a little cock-sucking thrown into the mix. Not this . . . gentle exploration and mastery of her body.

"Toushirou," she moaned, unable to stop herself.

"If you keep saying my name, I'm going to make you scream it."

When did he get so bold? He was in the power position now, though, so she should have expected it. She tried not to tense up as she waited for him to rise above her, thrust inside. But he remained where he was, tracing circles on the sensitive skin of her inner thighs.

All she could see were the tufts of his hair. He was so short! She giggled, playing with the silky strands, until he did something that made her gasp. Then he was the one laughing.

"Like that?" he teased, circling her clit with his finger again. She wasn't an idiot, or an innocent—she knew what that spot did, what it was for. The only satisfaction she'd had in her sexual life had come from manipulating that little gland. But she'd never had a man do it. She'd never had another person touch her there, never felt the thrill of not only the physical pleasure, but the pure adrenaline rush of not knowing what was going to happen, when he was going to touch or where he was going to touch or how quickly, how firmly. It was ecstasy and it was torment and it was her taichou doing it to her. She writhed as he stroked her, over and over again, and then the pressure disappeared and she wanted to cry, but it was back again. Only hotter, wetter, more friction, more pressure, just more. Was that . . . his tongue? She screamed, every cell in her body focused on that one little bundle of nerves, every muscle tensing as she approached that cliff, the one she had only ever fallen off of alone. As she was there, right on the edge, staring down into the abyss, ready to fall, his fingers tangled with hers, his thumb caressing her palm. Then lips joined the tongue wrapped around her clit. He sucked, softly, and she was lost. Gone, done, over the edge, shouting his name as waves of ecstasy rippled out from her epicenter. Heat engulfed her. Lights flashed behind her eyes and the world shifted and she was fairly sure she had died. And all the while, his hand gripped hers, grounding her.

When she came back to herself, he was still lapping at her, only he had moved away from her clit—it was too sensitive, too raw, too much now. Instead he licked at her opening, slid two fingers inside, rubbing, stroking, and she trembled anew at the difference in feeling. It was deeper. Less intense, but more fundamental. She'd never felt so female before.

"Toushirou," she whispered, stroking his cheek. He crawled up her body, kissing her, sharing her taste, cursing as he had to slip his fingers out of her just to reach her mouth. She moaned, too, at the loss, but chuckled. He really did need to grow more. He growled, seeming to know her thoughts, and she was laughing in earnest, hugging him tight to her, loving how giving and sweet and incredible he was. She'd never laughed before, during. What was it he'd said this was supposed to be? Fun? Maybe it was.

She shifted, and he groaned, and she realized she was ahead of him. This part was more than a little nerve-wracking, but it was only fair. So she traced the thick, ropy muscles of his chest down to the finer, more defined grooves of his abdomen. He wrinkled his nose, ticklish, and she wanted to hug the adorableness out of him. There was nothing cute about his eyes, though. They were all intensity as she finally found the waistline of his trousers, and started to undo the button and unzip them. She felt him, hot and hard, pulsing against her fingers on the other side of the cloth, and she lost her nerve. Toushirou rose above her, taking over the job and pushing the pants down lean hips before kicking them to the floor. She wanted to get her hands on that ass. It was perfect—tight, round, just the right size to fit perfectly in her palms. But first she had to deal with the slightly more, um, pressing problem that had popped up between them.

She ran a finger over his rod, fascinated and slightly afraid of the part of a man she knew could cause so much pain. It wasn't overly long, but it was thick, and hard, and so hot to the touch she almost flinched away, like she had touched a hot stove instead of a living, breathing Shinigami male. She wrapped her fist around him and began to stroke, as she had been taught, shocked when he began to grow longer, right before her eyes. It seemed her earlier evaluation of his size wasn't quite accurate. Her thumb brushed the leaking, bulbous tip, and a strangled sound tore from his throat. He pulled her fingers away, and she looked up at him, afraid of what she'd done wrong.

"Too much," he explained at her questioning look. "I'm too close." She nodded, pretending like she understood, but she didn't. So what if he came? She had already. And even if he needed more time to recover than she did, she wasn't going anywhere.

But then he was stroking her breasts, licking her nipples, and she hardly noticed him shimmying around until she felt him, hot and heavy against her thigh. It was time. She tensed involuntarily, and heard him snort as once again the room spun and she was somehow above him, this time.

"Will you stop doing that?" she cried, smacking his chest.

He wrinkled his nose. "What? You have to be on top."

She hadn't been before. He'd taken her every other way, including from behind, if she remembered right, but she didn't say that. "Why?" she asked instead.

"You're too tall for me. Otherwise all I can see are these," he said, cupping her breasts. She leaned into the caress. "And, beautiful as they are, I want to see your face."

"Oh." She grinned. "You're just too short!"

He circled his hips, grinding against her. "Not everywhere." Smug bastard. Ridiculously hot smug bastard.

"No, not everywhere," she acknowledged, stroking his length. He handed her a condom and leaned back as she rolled it on, letting her see how much he liked what she was doing. He hid nothing from her, and she loved it. To have this window into his soul when he was usually so stingy with his thoughts and feelings was . . . empowering, at the very least. More than that, it made her feel close to him, like they were in this adventure together. And wasn't that the corniest thing she'd ever thought. It's just sex, she told herself. Stop romanticizing it. But she couldn't help it. As she impaled herself on him, and he helped her, guiding her hips, and she felt the burning pressure of being filled to the brim, she wondered if it wasn't something more. Then he was rocking his hips, and she had no time to wonder anything, mesmerized by a sea of ocean blue and the thrust and drag of hot, delicious friction.

"Toushirou," she moaned, leaning down to kiss him as he played with her nipples, surged into her, drove her to new heights of need. And when she came this time, it was less intense than the first orgasm, but infinitely more satisfying. Because he was there, inside her, under her, all around her, hard and strong and steady for her to hold onto as the world fragmented and she burst into flames. "Taichou!" she screamed, clamping down on him, hearing him shout her name in turn as the vice-lock of her inner muscles forced him over the edge as well. And if tears rolled down her cheeks as her body convulsed from the aftershocks, well, it was just that intimate.

She slumped onto his chest afterward, fingers twitching, gasping for breath, burying her face in his neck and loving the feel of her taichou still inside her until he finally softened, sliding out, and rolled them onto their sides. He moved as if to pull away, and she just held on tighter, sobbing now, as the fear and nerves and memories slipped away and all she could think about was how beautiful it all was, and how real, and how she'd never ask for anything again if she could just have him.

He held her as she cried herself to sleep. Long after she'd fallen into dreamworld, he tortured himself with the memory of her tears. Somehow, some way, despite his efforts to be gentle and careful and present, he'd hurt her even worse this time. In over twenty years, he'd never seen her cry like that. Not even over Gin.

"Rangiku," he whispered, just to hear her name. Just to feel it on his lips. But that was worse, because it was fleeting. There and then gone, like him, like her, like them. It was all gone: their past, their present, any future they could have had as a plural. Forever more there would be her and there would be him, but they would never be a unit again.

All because he wasn't worthy of that pedestal she put him on. He could have told her that, he could have told all of them that, but they never listened. They saw him as a child, a captain, a hero, an innocent, a million different things, but never a man, with faults and fears and desires and demons to fight and temptations he just couldn't conquer. He tried his best, but he was just a man, and sometimes it was too hard to try any more. If he had just been normal, it wouldn't have mattered, the world would have gone on as it always did, and no one would have cared. But as the curse of being "gifted," his mistakes always ended in tragedy.

"Who am I, any more?" he asked himself, carding his fingers through his hair. She'd been so terrified of being pregnant, of being tied to him. So happy when she found out she was free.

And he'd been devastated. He'd longed for that tie, hoped for it. Hoped for her misery. And then he'd listened to her stupid plan, taken advantage of her in an emotional state, made her cry and regret again. But never again. She deserved better than him, better than his selfish, stupid weakness. And if she couldn't realize it on her own, he'd force her to.

He glared down at the woman still sleeping in her bed. "I love you."

This was so like him. Not to realize how valuable she was until he'd broken her.

In the end, he was the one shattered.

A/N (Reprise):

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