I lost count of how many times I rewrote this. Dx
Ichigo felt so tired that he would fall onto his knees if he could, but Grimmjow's taunting jeers stoked his pride enough to keep him on his feet and gritting his teeth in frustration. He knew that the older man was just trying to distract him from his troubles, but there couldn't possibly be a worst solution than this - having the very cause of his headache jumping around in front of him, teasing him, calling him a girl.
Couldn't Grimmjow tell how hard it was for Ichigo to remain as calm as he was already? How he had to use every ounce of self control to suppress his urge to stare at the man all day, how he had to keep turning away to hide the blush on his cheeks whenever Grimmjow came a little too close, how he had to secretly take care of himself in the bathroom in the middle of the night because of the dreams that constantly haunted him...
The bark of laughter reached Ichigo's ears just a second too late. By the time Ichigo recovered his breath from a stinging punch in the gut, Grimmjow was already circling him again, hopping lightly on the balls of his feet while sporting a wide, almost predatory grin on his face.
How was it that this man seemed to have boundless energy?
The thought brought a indignant scowl on Ichigo's face. This was ridiculous. There was no way he was just going to stand there and take this shit. Sucking in a deep breath, he gathered all his strength and pounced.
A burst of satisfaction spread through his limbs the moment his foot collided with solid muscle. He heard - with another surge of victory - Grimmjow's breath leave his chest with an audible whoosh, then the man doubled over and toppled forward with both arms wrapped around his stomach.
Yes!
"Take that!" Ichigo yelled, pumping his fist in the air.
Grimmjow groaned and rolled over to his side, still clutching his abdomen. His bangs, stringy and darkened to the shade of cobalt blue from dampness, fell across his forehead and covered his eyes.
Ichigo rolled his eyes at the older man's dramatic antics and padded over to the prone form on the ground. "That's for calling me a girl, asshole!" He grinned, extending an arm to help Grimmjow to his feet.
When the older man only groaned again and drew his knees closer to his chest, Ichigo's smile faltered.
"Oh, come on, it can't be that bad," he scoffed, although his heart did sink a little.
Grimmjow grunted in response, his cheek firmly pressed into the dirt beneath him. Ichigo's stomach lurched in dread as he watched the man curl his body into an even smaller ball.
Frowning now, Ichigo fell into a crouch and placed his hand tentatively on Grimmjow's bicep. The man didn't react. The only sound coming from him was shaky gasps that sounded positively alarming.
"Shit," Ichigo murmured. His heart started to pound in his ribcage - for once it wasn't because of his proximity to his crush. Did he break a rib? Puncture a lung? Panic began to seize him.
"Grimmjow, look at me!" he pleaded. The man turned his head just a fraction, but his features remained scrunched in pain. "Shit, I'm going to go get Tessai! Don't move!"
Ichigo patted Grimmjow's shoulder and sprang up, but before he could straighten up competely, his wrist was caught in a vice grip.
"Got ya!"
Ichigo froze and watched in disbelief as Grimmjow sat up; still clutching his middle, except this time he was cackling like a mad man.
For a split second, Ichigo's mind went blank.
Was this Grimmjow's idea of a joke? Did he think it was funny to fool around with someone's emotions like that? Did he not know how genuinely frantic Ichigo was feeling? Did he think it was fucking easy for Ichigo to keep everything bottled inside all this while-
Something within Ichigo snapped.
"What do you mean?" Kisuke asked, keeping his voice light-hearted despite his shock.
A different voice - slightly more feminine than Ishida's but just as arrogant - replied cooly, "Grimmjow Jaegerjaques was killed in the line of duty six years ago."
"Well, if you want to get technical, it wasn't officially in the line of duty," Ishida took over from Szayel. "He was an agent, part of a highly secretive team of operatives that specializes in international human trafficking. Six years ago, when he was working on a case, his lover was murdered as a warning."
Kisuke closed his eyes.
"He went after them," Szayel said. "The agency explicitly denied his request to participate in the operation, but he went anyway."
Silence followed. Kisuke pinched the bridge of his nose. He had to admit, this wasn't an outcome that he had expected. He would never say it out loud, but he secretly felt a little relieved - Jaegerjaques being an agent of justice was infinitely better than the alternative, but this didn't explain his miraculous resurrection and the circumstances that led to his arrival at Kisuke's doorstep. Who knew what could've happened to the man since then?
As the two informants remained quiet on the other end of the line, Kisuke pondered his options. After waiting so long, this was exactly what he didn't need - an answer that only raised even more questions.
And those men...
Kisuke sucked in a deep breath.
"I need you two to look up these men for me."
When the kid went still and turned red in the face, Grimmjow's first thought was that maybe he had gone a little too far. He half-expected a slap, or maybe a kick in the nuts, but this...
Ichigo sat on the ground in silence; hugging his knees with his face buried between his arms, his body angled away from Grimmjow. The boy looked as though he was simply resting, but Grimmjow knew he was anything but.
The contact had been brief, a little clumsy and so full of anger that Grimmjow was stunned speechless. He could almost still feel Ichigo's palms on his cheeks, where the boy had grabbed him before crushing their lips together forcefully. And then Ichigo had shoved him away so roughly that Grimmjow had actually fallen back onto his elbows.
He thought the kid would flee afterwards, but Ichigo didn't. The teen had glared at him, cheeks flushed and brows drawn, looking both furious and conflicted at the same time before curling himself up in his current position.
Grimmjow stared at the huddled form in front of him, half in disbelief, half in comprehension. Everything was beginning to make sense - the boy's tendency to stare, to blush for no apparent reason and his seething dislike for being called a child - now Grimmjow wondered how he had never realized this before.
A small voice in his head chided him: was he really that ignorant?
He thought back of the times he'd teased Ichigo, purposely riling him up just to see the kid squirm, red-faced and flustered. How many times had he caught Ichigo gazing at him, admiring his body, and how many times had he intentionally let him? And shit, wasn't he just doing the same to Ichigo not ten minutes ago? What pure-hearted man would look at someone else's body like that?
On hindsight, when it all boiled down at the end of the day, it wasn't that he didn't recognized the signs; he had simply refused to accept them for what they were.
"You shouldn't get involved with someone like me," Grimmjow found himself saying automatically, feeling an odd twinge of wistfulness as the words left him.
Ichigo's head snapped up immediately. "If you're going to preach to me about my age, you can shove it," he said with a heated scowl.
Grimmjow resisted the urge to laugh. He had expected this much. This fire, this stubbornness, was part of the teenager he had come to know after all.
"It's not just that, Ichigo. You don't even know who I am," he said truthfully. "Fuck, I don't know who I am. I don't want you to-"
He never got to finish his sentence, because all of a sudden he was flat on his back with Ichigo sitting heavily on top of him. Before he could utter another word, Ichigo's hands were on his collar, shaking him violently and screaming almost hysterically.
"Stop treating me like I'm five years old!"
Grimmjow winced as the back of his head hit the ground with a loud thud, and then again, and again, until Ichigo finally let go of him. The boy sat there, straddling his torso, fingers still curled limply around his t-shirt.
"Why can't people see that I can take care of myself?" Ichigo muttered bitterly.
It's not that simple, Grimmjow wanted to say, but right at that moment, a deep booming voice announced that dinner was ready.
To say that dinner was awkward would be an understatement.
Ichigo didn't know what it was, but there was just this weird tension in the air; it wasn't exactly hostile, just...uncomfortable. Uncle Kisuke and Juushirou chatted just like usual. Nothing seemed obviously wrong. His uncle wasn't ignoring him; it was like the argument in the morning had never happened. Yet, something was definitely off - he just couldn't put a finger on it.
Then again, he had his own problems to worry about. He wasn't sure if Tessai had overheard their conversation, although honestly at this point he couldn't care less. He could accept it if Grimmjow simply wasn't interested in him, but to hear that kind of excuse again...it was infuriating. He wished he could say that he was surprised, but he wasn't, not really. He'd been hoping that Grimmjow would be different, but it looked like the man was just like the rest; automatically assuming that he couldn't think for himself just because he was younger than them and forcing their decision on him for the sake of his own good.
He tried hard not to take out his frustration on his dinner, but as the fish fillet on his plate crumbled into pieces under the assault of his fork, he gave up.
"I'm not feeling well," he muttered, standing up.
He was out of the dining room before anyone could question him, then he slipped into his room and locked the door behind him. He let his face fall into his palms, feeling the burn on his cheeks and the insistent throbbing in the back of his eyes. He refused to cry - he was going to take this like the adult he was and accept that, once in a while, rejection was just a part of life. Still, that didn't mean he couldn't feel disappointed.
It just wasn't fair.
Slumping back against the wooden door, he let his body slide down until he ended up sitting on the floor. But before he could continue to feel sorry for himself, there was a knock on the door, followed by a low, gruff murmur of "It's me". Sighing, he scrambled to his feet and unlocked the door.
Slowly, hesitantly, the door knob turned.
"Ichigo?"
At his voice, the boy turned to him, lips set in a thin straight line.
Grimmjow bit back a sigh. "I'm sorry-"
"Don't be, I don't need your pity."
Something twisted in Grimmjow's chest as his eyes went to the trembling, tightly-balled fists pressed against Ichigo's thighs and then back to the boy's face. This wasn't right. That look - the hurt, the barely-concealed humiliation etched onto those features - didn't belong there.
"Just...tell me the truth, Grimmjow." The gaze that met his was determined even as it betrayed the boy's nervousness. "Under different circumstances...say you don't have this...problem, would your answer be the same?"
If he didn't have this problem? If he didn't have to worry about dragging this innocent, overly-trusting young man into a tangled web of unknowns? Fuck, who was he kidding? Ichigo was the only comforting presence in his current life, he'd be lying if he said that the thought of having the boy in his arms was not an enticing one.
His moment of hesitation was enough for Ichigo to come to his own conclusion.
"Then screw circumstances! Who was the one who told me to 'live my life', huh? Who was the one who told me that I'm stupid for letting my dad control me?" Ichigo yelled.
Grimmjow's eyes widened.
"Fucking hypocrite!"
He caught the swinging arm just in time. Ichigo struggled, twisting and turning like a trapped wild cat in an attempt to wrench his arm out of his grasp, but Grimmjow held on.
God, that boy had no idea how tempting this was. He had no idea.
If Ichigo hadn't completely lost it out there in the backyard, he certainly had now. He didn't care if he was making a fool of himself in front of Grimmjow anymore. He was simply stating the truth, and the truth was that Grimmjow had let him down.
He tried to pry the older man's fingers off of his wrist with his free hand, but that son of a bitch had him in an iron vice and all he got for his effort was more pain. He was just about to raise his leg to knee the man in the groin when Grimmjow grabbed his other arm.
"Oh for fuck's sake, I'll let go when you calm down, okay?" the older man said in exasperation.
Ichigo stilled, and sure enough, Grimmjow relaxed his grip immediately. He expected the man to release his arms, but instead of letting go completely, he was suddenly yanked forward. Before he could comprehend what was happening, a pair of lips descended on his, silencing his yelp of surprise and almost bringing his heart to a skidding stop.
For a moment, Ichigo thought he was dreaming; perhaps his wishful thinking had led him to hallucinate, but this felt too real - the texture of Grimmjow's lips, the wetness from his tongue, the hand that was slowly pulling him closer - no, he was creative but not this creative.
"Why?" he gasped when they finally broke for air. He stared into the deep pools of blue in front of him, feeling too confused to be elated yet. His pulse began to race as he felt himself being pressed against the older man's muscled chest.
"I only have so much self control, you know," came the raspy reply. "I hope you understand what you're getting into, because I can't promise anything."
"I know," Ichigo mumbled.
The pair of large, burning hot hands finally left his wrists to cup the sides of his face. His breath hitched in his throat as Grimmjow ran a thumb across his cheek and leaned in.
"You do realize..." Grimmjow murmured against his lips. "...that I'm twice your age."
"Mm hmm."
"And that your uncle's not going to like this."
Ichigo shuddered when Grimmjow gave his lower lip a quick nip. "I don't care."
"And your dad will probably kill you."
"Shut up."
To be continued...
