Work Text:
"Spirit and Song"
A hopeful oneshot fanfiction written by FicticiousDelicious.
The strums of an acoustic guitar being tuned, and retuned added to the frustrated growls of a man who could barely find his way around the strings and chords right now. It was so easy to sing but why did the guitar give him so much trouble? As much as he wanted to, as much as he knew how, he couldn’t make his fingers press the strings the way that he wanted them to go but he could still feel the music in his soul and hear it in his head. If he couldn’t get the chords right where was the sense of melody coming from? How does someone know the song before they’ve even played it? Why couldn’t he make himself play it… Practice. He practiced over and over. It was hard.
A middle-aged man with short dark blue hair on his head and weary eyes stared in annoyance at the lyrics and scribbled musical notation of a melody on a paper that was taped to a string which was tied to a blade of his ceiling fan that wasn’t spinning. He slapped a key on his laptop set upon a dictionary on top of his bed next to where he was sitting; this paused a drum and bass track that he’d created in a program to go along with the song as harmony. The easy light of late afternoon came in through his open window and aside from a few pairs of jeans, a t-shirt or two and some papers across his carpeted bedroom floor the marine blue walls and small room looked tidy. There were countless pictures and posters from all walks of musical taste upon his walls, some signed and some not. This room was part of his comfort and shelter. The man narrowed his eyes and snarled…then tried again, starting the digital track over and singing and playing the melody of a southern sort of rock that was edging toward folkish grounds. His right hand’s fingers clutched the guitar’s neck hard from chord to chord as the left with a pick flicked strings and his voice with a southern vibrato sang solemnly true, “These words are written…for you. This is for me…for me to reach you. Been singing my life away…for so many long years. From my side…I’ll reach you ther-” He played a chord wrong for the fifth time and lost his temper. He slapped the laptop closed and tossed his guitar onto the soft and unmade bed, smacking at the paper as he got up and stomped out of the bedroom. “Goddamnit.” Among other things, he used to perform some back in his day…but now he was forty-one years old and his hands shook after practicing for too long and his temper was shorter than it had ever been.
As he angrily rattled around his apartment’s kitchen for something to drink there came a knock on the man’s door. Grimmjow snarled and with a half-drunk bottle of whiskey dangling from a lodging between two fingers he shuffled around to see who the fuck wanted his attention now of all times. He couldn’t see them through the peep-hole and opened the door with the security chain still on and glared out.
While a younger man who nervously fidgeted with his fingers, dressed in business casual, stood in the hall this man outside looking in saw a scruffily dressed and grouchy older man in black sweats and a stained t-shirt who could have been mistaken for a werewolf if his face was unshaven.
“What?” Grimmjow snapped through the crack of the door at his visitor. It was the unkempt appearance and perpetual weariness that made him look so old. He just didn’t want to be bothered.
The younger man, his hair orange and his face shaven and fair, flinched and bravely managed to stare this evil in the face. “C-Could you not be so loud?”
Oh ho, ho, ho…so this was how it was going to be. Grimmjow slammed the apartment door in the other man’s face.
The younger man’s nerves all spiked for a second and had another second to wonder if he’d just made or ended a mistake.
The grouchy man’s apartment door was yanked back open on the third second after a click and a clack on the other side and a big, angry man who was wielding a half-full bottle of whiskey came out into the hall with a snarl and shaking the bottle at the younger man. “You think you’re tough enough to shut me up?”
Ichigo, this was the younger man’s name, swallowed and took a few careful steps back as the grouchy fellow stalked him a few paces…hands out to the sides and facing his potential attacker but nearly going cross-eyed looking at the bottle shaken at him.
“You feelin’ lucky?” Grimmjow snarled with a sick sneer. This young dude wasn’t shit.
Ichigo took another step back and as the other man started to clench a fist Ichigo bolted. Instead of running to his apartment door he ran up the hall so that this guy wouldn’t know to which side he lived if he didn’t already. He darted into the stairwell and let the door shut, huffing a little and cautiously watching the thin glass window for a shadow. Mistakes had been made…but his peeved neighbor didn’t pursue him.
Grimmjow wasn’t actually going to hit that guy…or was he? Unscrewing the whiskey’s cap he was going back into his own apartment with a slam and re-securing the security chain. Damn fucking people. He hadn’t even been making that much noise.
The next day was much like the last only Grimmjow had returned from work late, happily covering another man’s shift, and his hands were shaking before he’d even picked up his guitar. He was just lucky that he didn’t need reading glasses to see yet… He made it to the chorus this time. “It’s my job to protect you. I’ll save you from hell-” Wrong chord. Anger. Stomping. Whiskey. Knock at the door… This time Grimmjow could see who it was through the peep-hole and, not intimidated in the least, he took a slug from the nearly empty bottle before opening the door a crack. The same younger man was standing there. “Hold on…” He actually closed the door in a falsely nice way and took off the security chain then opened it and set the whiskey bottle down and stepped out in the same intimidating fashion as he had yesterday. Unexpectedly after he got too damn close to his neighbor Grimmjow got push-back from the shrimp.
Wearing a sweater today and some blue jeans with slip-ons Ichigo stood his ground as the grouchy man in sweats and smelling of strong booze tried to intimidate him and Ichigo shoved him…well kind of. He pushed the other man’s shoulders and didn’t move Grimmjow back much. “Look! I’d appreciate it if you could just not make a lot of noise.”
Grimmjow wore a scowl and his bare feet, gently dusted with dark hairs over the knuckles like his hands and heavily over his arms, were planted heavily. “What’s makin’ so much noise that you’re upset about now?” He just crossed his muscled forearms and rubbed fingers against the coarse hairs over one, irritably tolerant of this foot-shorter, sweater-wearing, butthurt, young shit.
“Whomever you’re talking to and playing music with! You guys are really loud and…and I can hear it through my whole place!”
Grimmjow looked unimpressed and rolled his eyes, the larger and curmudgeonly middle-aged man turned around to walk back into his place. “Then move.” He slammed the door in his neighbor’s face this time.
The next day was exactly the same…up until the point where Grimmjow heard the knock, more of an angry banging, and answered the door by taking off the security chain first and sighed in the younger man’s face as he stood in his doorway, blocking it with his large frame. He looked no more put-together than usual today.
Ichigo irritably tapped a finger with crossed arms and glaring up at his neighbor. Today it was a loud and flamboyant button-down shirt and some leather pants and colorful tennis shoes on his slighter frame.
Grimmjow accessorized only with a new bottle of whiskey and took a long slug right in front of his neighbor before he said anything. “I wonder if I hit ya with this bottle if you could get any uglier…” Today’s outfit was really painful to look at…
Ichigo was so tempted to ask if this guy had seen his dick recently over that slight paunch but he didn’t actually want to get hit. “You’re not listening. For three damn days you haven’t been listening. For a month since I moved in here you and your band have been quiet and I didn’t have to ignore it until now but I can’t concentrate on my work!”
“Go tell somebody who cares.” Grimmjow turned around to slam his door shut.
“I would but-” Ichigo did the most ill-conceived thing he could have done in this situation and that was putting his hand between his conversation and his neighbor’s front door. The door slammed on Ichigo’s hand and bounced back after ramming the back of that hand against the jam. Instantaneous regret. Ichigo sucked in a hissing sound of pain and yanked his hand away, holding it in agony as it didn’t take long for the bruise on his thin skin on the back of his hand to start to form. The pain was sharp and strong. There had been no resistance to keep his hand in the gap just a painful blow.
Grimmjow had realized his door hadn’t shut and saw it swing open a little more as he was turning around to see what had stopped his neighbor from running his damn mouth. He watched seemingly apathetic with another slug of whiskey as the younger man held his hand and was clenching teeth and looking very much in pain. Grimmjow’s attitude looked like apathy but it wasn’t actually apathy. At the very least…the very, very, very least this young man had balls to keep bothering him over something that seemed to matter. Coming back Grimmjow elbowed his door open wider and with a rough hand he ushered the younger man into his apartment who kind of tried to refuse but Grimmjow’s not perfect physical fitness shouldn’t be mistaken for weakness. There were muscles under there and he sternly brought the younger man inside anyway.
Ichigo was left standing by the shut front door with one hand held as it throbbed and smarted something mean and looking ahead at a fairly gloomy mess of an apartment with empty shelves, bottles littering a coffee table by an old couch, a fancy television that was off, shabby looking pull-blinds in the windows that barely let any light in and a kitchen on one side and a hallway on the other. There weren’t any lights on but he could see alright. The other man had disappeared into the kitchen and when the sound of the fridge opening came there was some light and rattling before it shut and there was gloom again. Ichigo stayed by the door, eyeing the undone chain and unlocked handle as he thought of a way out already, just in case. His hand still really hurt, there was a huge bruise where it had struck the jam and some very angry blood vessels.
The grouchy man returned to the door with a zipping bag of ice and a whiskey bottle under his arm. Grimmjow held out an empty hand with the slight gesture of fingers.
Ichigo knew what that meant. He lifted his hand and the other man took it carefully and set the ice on top. Ichigo’s other hand rose to hold the ice in place and then the grouchy man’s hands moved off of him…they were rough and looked a bit scarred with short, dirty nails.
Grimmjow regripped his whiskey to take it out from under his arm and turned to walk away. “Twenty on, twenty off.” He unscrewed the whiskey’s cap again. “You can stay or find the door.” He took another slug and walked away down his apartment’s other hallway toward the bathroom and shut the door.
This is a FicticiousDelicious fanfiction, exclusive to my Ao3.org. This fanfiction is not approved for any manner of AI use. If you’re reading this writing from a source other than https://archiveofourown.org/users/FicticiousDelicious/pseuds/FicticiousDelicious then it’s not the original and it’s not me posting it!
Frozen by the suddenly kind gesture and yet still cold treatment…pun disregarded, Ichigo turned his eyes down to the bag of ice. Some of it was already melting and his hand ached but it was getting a little numb. He wasn’t trying to…well actually he had been…trying to reason with this other man. As though he felt like he needed to know more now, Ichigo walked further into this man’s apartment since he’d been given the option to stay. He peeked to the left and there was just a bedroom door cracked open and the bathroom one shut in a plain gloomy hallway. He looked right, the kitchen… No decorations and one or two plates and utensils in a drying rack by the sink. He stopped behind the couch in the living room dead ahead and looked around at a rather bleak and empty space except the collection of bottles and nice TV. It smelled like booze and a heady musk that was only just bearable. This place really needed some air. Now he could see a few books stacked among the bottles and they looked like novels. If the walls could speak…in this apartment they kind of could… There was enough gloomy light to show pictures of this man when he looked younger dressed in some sort of military uniform, then in his dress uniform stood by someone else in a matching dress uniform too, an old high school picture and one with this man in a firefighter’s heavy garb.
With the flushing sound of a toilet in the background Grimmjow returned, quietly making his way to the couch and sitting down far to one end once he saw that he still had company, aside from his whiskey. He nudged some empty bottles from beer, vodka and whiskey out of the way with a bare foot and laid an ankle up on his coffee table and stared quietly ahead of himself with a whiskey bottle still in hand – seemingly at peace. The silence was actually alright with him. It was peaceful. Just maybe he could understand why this younger man needed it to work.
The guest turned around…realizing that he’d thought there were one or two more people here this whole time but it was just this old guy…or was he even the age that he seemed? Unsure, Ichigo moved and politely sat down on his neighbor’s couch at the opposite end, holding the bag of melting ice against his hand for longer, he was startled when he sat on something and scooted forward. “Oops…” he pulled a wallet on a chain out of the couch cushions and held it out toward the other man who took it and just tossed it onto the coffee table, causing more bottles to rock and rattle out of the way but not knocking any of them over. Ichigo sat in silence for a while, not thinking of much but letting himself relax. This was a good couch and environment for that…but his host wasn’t much of a host. Time passed…
“Has it been twenty?” Grimmjow probed after some long minutes.
The younger man’s head shook, he didn’t know. Ichigo flicked his flamboyant shirt’s sleeve back to look at his watch. Maybe it had been. “Oh. Close.” They’d really been just sitting here in silence this entire time…
“Take the ice off.” Grimmjow had a sense for time, he knew without a watch.
Ichigo took the ice off of his mostly numb but angrily bruised hand and held the half-melted bag on his lap, which was dripping a little but he didn’t notice. Not once had his neighbor looked over toward him but he’d glanced a few times himself. Ichigo began to realize that the other man wasn’t as old as he looked probably…those dark circles under this man’s eyes and the constantly neutral or displeased looks he commonly seemed to have were just some kind of suppression of cares… It made Ichigo’s eyes ache just to see someone so weary; how had he gotten that way? The angular and roughly handsome way that his neighbor looked though, even with a slight paunch, was telling considering those photographs… Ichigo kept his thoughts to himself. It was polite. This grouchy man was all alone and probably had been for a while to be so gloomy and pissed off. Suddenly Ichigo was glad that he hadn’t reported this man to the landlord for noise disturbances; it was the nature of muffled parts of solemn lyrics to the song, that which Ichigo had heard, which had staved off his urge to be a tattletale before. Just playing it all alone… “It’s…peaceful in here.”
“It’s not peaceful, it’s just quiet.” Grimmjow’s hollow eyes rolled over; he was being overly critical. “Just like you wanted, right?”
Ichigo held his tongue and soulful eyes stared as his mouth gaped a little. “I didn’t mean…I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings or make you feel worse.”
Grimmjow’s eyes pulled away as he stayed relaxed on the couch. “I’m not feelin’ anything so there’s nothin’ for you to apologize for.” He drank from the whiskey bottle again; his good ol’ vice.
The only way Ichigo could fathom drinking hard alcohol like it was water out of a bottle was to imagine himself as built as this guy was. He needed to get out of here…for some reason this place was getting too sad and it was smothering him. “I have to…finish my homework. College and all that…” As he got up from the couch the man upon it regarded his wish for departure with nothing more than a nod. “Thank you for the ice.” Ichigo left fairly quick and shut the door with a polite-volumed click and scurried back into his own apartment where everything was fresh and bright and comforting. At first he sucked back a few breaths of relief. He made himself some tea and sat quietly at his desk trying to start homework but Ichigo found himself stuck staring at the paper…then glancing toward a framed picture stood up on the desk’s corner. He smiled sadly.
In the next two days there was very quiet music from Grimmjow’s apartment, so quiet that it was definitely hard to hear and that was because he was practicing just his guitar in the living room without a music track and mumbling the melody’s lyrics. He didn’t like the idea of that young neighbor coming by again so he’d toned it down… Having company around some of the time and realizing that they disapproved of the way he carried on just made the loneliness worse. There was a knock at the door. Blindsided, his fingers on the guitar stopped abruptly and Grimmjow ceased his low mumbling with a frown. Great… He set the aged, stringed instrument aside, grabbed the bottle of schnapps he’d been working on after his shift at the department and moved toward the apartment’s front door and checked the peep-hole. This guy again? Grimmjow undid the chain and opened the door with as much of a solemn face as ever as he stared from the crack of the door at his neighbor. “What the hell do you want?” He appeared in sweats and no shoes or socks like usual.
“Hi.” Ichigo chimed with a small smile and feeling the awkward pressure of doing this already. Today’s outfit was less flamboyant than the last, just a black long-sleeved shirt with a rose on its front and slacks with classy shoes on.
“Are we suddenly friends now?” Grimmjow growled. He sounded like he was mocking his neighbor’s persistence, but stopped being aggressive when the other man held up a sort of familiar bag but instead of ice it was full of chocolate chip cookies. The most generic neighbor to neighbor gift ever…but he was a little touched by that as the younger man held them out for him. As Grimmjow took the bag of cookies he carefully gripped and turned Ichigo’s hand over to look at it. Not this one, it wasn’t bruised; he’d forgotten which hand had been hurt. He let the younger man have his hand back and opened his front door a little wider, keeping the neck of his bottle of schnapps and the edge of the bag of cookies in one hand now.
Ichigo realized what the other man was looking for and showed him the opposite hand…it looked pretty horrible with a nasty and wide dark bruise. He flexed it a bit. “It still works, how else do you think I made the cookies?”
Grimmjow’s eyes moved up from the younger man’s hand to his neighbor’s face with a flat stare. “And you baked the dough with alcohol in it too, right?”
“I think that would be overkill…no offense.” The tone of voice Ichigo used was slightly amused but carefully spoken, just in case that was tender.
Not one to deny his increasing problem with drink Grimmjow shrugged and walked back into his place. “You get away with a remark like that once. Come in if you want.” He’d left his door open and glanced back to see if his neighbor was following.
Ichigo walked in and closed the door carefully.
“It’s a door, not a lady. You don’t have to close it so-”
“This door mauled my hand, I don’t want to piss it off again.”
Grimmjow snorted and shrugged.
Polite as he actually preferred to be, Ichigo took off his shoes by the door and walked up the gloomy hallway toward the living room, around his neighbor, and the first thing Ichigo noticed was the guitar on the couch. It looked well-loved. Then he noticed that there were no bottles on the coffee table anymore and the books from before remained but there was a paper with music on it and three tall candles burning in the center gathered in the bottom of a broken bottle. Their wax dripped down and collected in the base of the bottle section. Ichigo drew in a breath quietly at the sight of this and went around the couch and sat down staring at the candles and their unique broken-glass holder.
Grimmjow came around in a minute with an unopened bottle of water for his neighbor, then he took his place on the couch. The younger man was in the center of the piece of furniture still watching the candles and Grimmjow was barely a stone’s throw to the right of him, having to set the guitar aside for the sake of a place to put his ass. He gave the other man the water bottle and stretched out his legs and stared at the lit candles too.
“You lost someone.” Ichigo turned his eyes toward the usually grouchy man who’d sat down, the candles’ light flickered warm against his face in the gloom of the apartment. For anyone living in this country and especially this city tomorrow was a day never forgotten…
Grimmjow’s calm eyes stared ahead at the candles and gave nothing up. “What makes you say that?” Comfortably Grimmjow’s legs were just straight and out, his feet were bare.
“Lots of people light a candle for someone they knew and lost tonight and tomorrow.” Ichigo laid the unopened water bottle on the couch and folded his hands with forearms resting on knees slightly apart. “I do too.”
“You left a candle burning while you’re out?” Now Grimmjow looked away from the candles and watched the dead space out ahead of himself. When he was part of the military he’d become a body bearer for a time before infantry. He’d ended a proud service in search of something else with meaning to do and became a firefighter, but for fun he played guitar and sang in local bars…some good old rock and folk music. He’d met a nice lady at a bar, she’d talked to him and it filled his heart with a delight that he’d lacked for years. She wasn’t perfect but she was a wonderful person and her teenage son had a shot at kind of having a dad as his mother and Grimmjow dated for some years, but the anniversary of tomorrow had crushed that…under a thousand plus pounds of rubble. They were just in the wrong place that day… A firefighter friend of his had died then as well. Plenty more of the department had gotten sick over the years. One couldn’t tell exactly what kind of life he’d lived by looking at Grimmjow; it had turned him into a very serious person. This younger person next to him probably hadn’t experienced anything so horrible before this. The younger generation and the older met here; they remembered the terror, shock, fear, panic…the news…people screaming…then weeks of silence with dust coating the air. People had watched in horror. Children hid in the bowels of their schools with teachers in fear. Lucky few fled the rubble and rescue crews had rushed in but the magnificent buildings had come down on some of them… Lives reaped by selfish ideals.
“No…but I’ll light one myself when I get back.” Emotion welled up immediately with this younger man though… Ichigo wiped at involuntary tears with his sleeve, pulling on it to get the black shirt’s cloth to go low enough that he could use his wrist. He sniffed. “My boyfriend worked in that place…” He tried not to but he started to cry. His boyfriend had been one of those guys who would walk in with flowers or a sudden idea to go somewhere and do something for a date, because he knew that he was kind of a workaholic. Fun surprises abound. Ichigo was struggling through college with a fulltime job, but they still made it work and liked adventure and were about the same age so they liked a lot of the same things. Sometimes there was bickering but it was short-lived and theirs at least, for a while, had been a meaningful relationship. It hurt Ichigo to even think of not being able to do a damn thing to save him. “You know…he was even kind of sick, I asked him if he was alright to go to work and he said he had to. … I’m so sorry…I didn’t come here to just cry and bother you. I swear I just wanted to be nice…I’m sorry for your losses too. It’s horrible…” He sniffed again and tried to force the tears to just stop. All he’d wanted to do was come here and give his neighbor something… Wasn’t it inevitable though? Two people from the same city with similar memories… Ichigo forced himself to stop crying by changing his thoughts and looked over at the stoic man on the couch, “Thank you for serving. I saw your pictures…” A couple more tears streaked down his face but he didn’t break down again.
Grimmjow moved and reached into a drawer under the coffee table and took out a candle and a lighter and set them on top for the other man to pick up, then resumed resting his back against the couch and staring ahead of himself, considering their situations collectively. “I’m sorry for your loss.” Emotions couldn’t rule this fellow, like anger was temporary. By always reverting back to a level-headed state Grimmjow continued to function, and once and a while…just once and a while he let himself vent it all out – privately. His neighbor was less resilient.
Ichigo sniffed hard and patted his face with a dry spot on his sleeve. Damn he felt like he’d cried too much already… Leaning forward on the comfortable couch he meekly reached for the candle. It carefully fit in beside the half-burnt down ones his neighbor had lit and Ichigo flicked the lighter and lit his then sat back and watched it, turning the lighter around in his hands anxiously.
Grimmjow’s eyes angled down slightly as he continued a stare forward. There was nothing more horrible to a man than not being able to do anything to stop tragedy…even as a soldier and a firefighter he’d put forward himself for others’ sakes but he could only do so much and on that day he couldn’t save the closest people he knew but at least he’d helped others. To cope recently he’d been trying to drink less and work on this song in memoriam but it was just very hard. However Grimmjow still hadn’t stopped trying. Even as a grouchy and reserved man with shaky hands, life’s lessons had stuck with him and the biggest one was to never surrender your spirit to terror. He put down his schnapps and opened the gifted bag of home-baked cookies and put one in his own mouth and held one out toward the younger man.
Ichigo took the chocolate-chip cookie out of the man’s rough palm with a long sniff and wiping at his eyes before he bit into it. He ate the cookie and minded the candles, watching their lights flickering. “I don’t want to be weak about this but it happens every year since… I miss him…I miss him so much..!”
Grimmjow was watching the fours candles, four precious lives. Taking a life was the hardest thing for a good person; for the less good killing was all too natural. That sort of shit made him angry but he didn’t let hatred fester in his heart, instead he functioned to serve the living and honor the dead. “Just remember and recover. That’s what makes a difference.”
“Does playing music help you recover?”
“That and my job.”
“You’re a firefighter still?” Ichigo had recognized the military pictures on the wall to be a much younger version of this man and the firefighter one was when he looked older.
“Yeah.”
Ichigo leaned on the couch’s backing with his shoulder as he turned to face his neighbor. “I never got your name.”
“Grimmjow.”
“Mine’s Ichigo.” He held out his uninjured hand for a shake and it was firmly met. “I know after fussing I don’t have any right at all, but could I ask to hear you play that song? I’ve only been hearing it through the wall this week. I’m sorry that I wasn’t understanding of your practice.” That apology was as genuine as it got. “I didn’t think you sounded bad if that makes a difference…” Hence asking to hear the song.
No stranger to performing for others Grimmjow shrugged and reached for his acoustic guitar and settled it on his lap, making sure that the thing was tuned. “And I expect you won’t bitch at me for playing ever again after this.”
“Never again. You’ve got my word.”
With a glance at his neighbor Grimmjow started to play his southern sort of rock with the guitar that went around a few repetitive beats and then straight into the first verse with a southern vibrato of singing and solemn sound, “These words are written…for you. This is for me…for me to reach you. Been singing my life away…for so many long years. From my side…I’ll reach you there.” A fumble with the guitar chords there but he forced himself to recover from that, made a little easier by the rests written into the melody. “It’s my job to protect you. I’ll save you from hell. Oh come hellfire…that sulfur swell…-” Grimmjow stopped after another mistake and moved his hands, shaking his head. His voice had pitch-perfect quality and his playing had the right rhythm to it but his hands were just too tense.
Ichigo had caught onto the rhythm and smiled, “That’s really cool so far though. I’ve never been to the south but that’s your accent right?”
“Born in the south, grew up on a military base just a few states over, finished up there and came here.”
“I’ve never left this state, but I’ve always wondered…I had a vacation planned…” The young man’s thoughts moved back into the shade and his face reflected it as his head tilted down.
Grimmjow reached over and poked Ichigo’s forehead up with two fingers, who was startled but not upset. “You’ve got something to confront, and doing that’ll make you stronger like you want. Would you like to go with me to the memorial tomorrow?” Normally he was just fine remembering on his own. It was usually taking the subway to his late lady’s favorite bar and pouring one out for her and some kind of juice for her son. Then having a drink with his firefighter department to remember his work buddy, but this time…he had the opportunity to take care of someone other than himself on this somber anniversary.
It was hard to fathom because Ichigo had been to a lot of the temporary memorials but never the finalized site at the plaza. He thought about putting his hands on his late boyfriend’s name and started crying all over again but nodded with a somber tenacity. “Yeah…yeah…” He had unfinished business with his memories.
It was like walking with legs of lead and trudging through wet cement at the memorial plaza as in the background a ceremony carried on for a crowd. Ichigo froze with Grimmjow standing stoically reverent behind him as they found this younger man’s beloved’s name engraved into stone. There was already another person here visiting someone else’s name and this perfect stranger touched the glossy-eyed man’s shoulder in comfort. Ichigo smiled sadly and that person smiled back then walked away. A perfect stranger offering kind sympathy…kind of like the man behind him to have helped him get here. Ichigo placed his hands on either side of the familiar name against cold stone and bowed his head. How many tears had already fallen on these stones? He thought toward wherever his beloved was now… ‘I wouldn’t be here if someone hadn’t helped me. Can you forgive me?’
Shaven and groomed well today, just for this, Grimmjow stood back with respect and observed quietly, his training from his first occupational specialty weighing in.
‘Can you forgive me for not coming here sooner? For hanging out with this other guy today? For being so scared of this place..? It’s so cold…but I miss holding onto you… I want to recover and do something with my life, but I miss you…I miss you…’ Ichigo collapsed on his knees and held onto the stone. ‘I love you…I miss you.’ He wished he could have convinced himself that his late boyfriend could hear his thoughts but he just wasn’t sure of things like that. In a painful minute on his knees Ichigo breathed, mourned and collected himself and stood himself back up. Small foam hearts came out from his pockets and he put them into the etching of the name and taking just a few more minutes with his thoughts he built a resolve. When Ichigo stepped back he felt Grimmjow place an arm around him and pat him on the shoulder and the younger man just leaned and stared ahead of them at the memorial. “Would you like to look for your friends?”
Grimmjow’s eyes remained ahead as well. When he didn’t respond his neighbor turned his head and Grimmjow’s eyes tipped down and he nodded surely. “Yeah.”
While they walked and found all three names Ichigo couldn’t help wondering how Grimmjow never changed his expression yet still expressed a powerful aura of reverence and remembrance. As they were walking away to try and find food after their time at the memorial, Ichigo was curiously glancing more than once at his neighbor’s face because Grimmjow had this tattoo of a black gothic ‘6’ on his lower cheek, until today it never showed up on Grimmjow’s face somehow. Makeup? A beard might cover that but surely a firefighter couldn’t have a beard as such. “I don’t mean to be rude but I’m curious about your tattoo.”
Grimmjow sighed, “It’s not rude.”
“Why six?”
“It’s a number with duality. It can be a six or a nine.” Grimmjow’s eyes slid toward the younger man whom he walked beside; each man had hands tucked into their own pockets. “If you get my drift.” A little humor to lighten the mood for a second.
“Oh, that’s racy…” Ichigo chuckled, almost wanting to disbelieve that.
Grimmjow looked away again as they continued walking among a crowd; if only it was just that. “I’m actually kidding. Six is the number of lives I took firsthand in the military. I got this tattoo after so I’d never forget that taking someone’s life has weight.”
Ichigo stared… “Oh jeeze.” He liked the first reason more but the second was philosophical and deep. “Well that’s…much different, I still like that reason though too. You cover it up often?”
“I forget to wash the stuff off.”
“Forget after work?”
“Yeah.”
A week later the mood had lifted quite a bit. After friendly visits back and forth between their apartments, when work and school weren’t in the way, Ichigo would relax on the couch in Grimmjow’s apartment as he listened to the other man play a guitar with a digital drum tack. In his southern accent Grimmjow sang the melody to a song which he’d chosen to transform into purely folk music.
Lately Grimmjow’s grip had relaxed enough that he could play a full song on the guitar without messing up. The trick was not to strangle the guitar. The man played chords with a slide and paused at some points to give appropriate rests; the song sounded better as folk with a southern voice and solemn tone, “These words are written…for you. This is for me…for me to reach you. Been singing my life away…for so many long years. From my side…I’ll reach you there.” Grimmjow’s solemn repetitive guitar played in minor chords accented the words well. “It’s my job to protect you. I’ll save you from hell. Oh come hellfire…that sulfur swell.” The lyrics and guitar started to get louder and more powerful. “Burn my skin and…blind my eyes! I’m sending notes to our makers… They speak of you well! Spirit and song, yours is good I’ll tell!” Back around to a chorus, “It’s my job to protect you. I’ll save you from hell. Oh come hellfire…and sulfur swell!” The guitar and words dropped into soft minor chords again. “Wish these messages…find you doing better now. Ensure that your eternity…is a good place to dwell.” Back up to loud with strong chords, “Spirit and song! You can rest easy now! It’s my job to protect you. Hope I’ve done it well! Oh come hellfire…and that sulfur swell! Your spirit and song…are freed to wander now! Know I loved you…your son and my dear girl!” Once more into minor sound with a short part of just guitar playing. “My job to protect you…it’s done now. Oh hellfire…and sulfuric ground… Suffering these is as dead to me…as the souls hell impounds… Oh greedy hellfire. And sulfur swell. You cannot have…this family… Into heaven they ascend...now…” Ended with a few final robust repeats of the guitar backing the sung chorus and a strum the whole song was nicely polished. Grimmjow was just happy he’d played through the whole thing this time without mistakes. He tugged the slide off a finger.
Ichigo clapped softly. “That’s…one hell of a closure song, if you don’t mind my pun. I like it.” How could someone not choke up while playing something like that? Ichigo almost had and it wasn’t even his song.
Grimmjow cocked a dark brow up. “Thank you.” He put his pick, slide and guitar down and let Ichigo cozy up beside him on the couch. Grimmjow’s hand went fishing for the television remote among the couch cushions and tossed it into his new friend’s hands. He observed as the younger man picked a channel and sighed. How does someone know a song before they’ve even played it? Often it’s a piece of their spirit long before ever being turned into a song. Grimmjow was pleased with their closure this year, he felt better than he ever had about it. This actual peace without his apartment needing to be silent was nice.
After turning on the tube Ichigo put the remote down and watched the television screen passively; its volume was soft. The tune of that song was still stuck in his head. Characters on the television’s show were spraying each other with hoses comedically… Ichigo thought about Grimmjow’s brave job. “If I asked you really nicely, would you show me around the fire department sometime? If it’s allowed.” A boyish request maybe but it would delight him if Grimmjow could anyway. “I don’t want to get you in trouble.”
“Sure, I’ll ask the captain to see about that.” Grimmjow hadn’t been chugging from a booze bottle recently and he was as sober as it got after work today. That felt…different. He’d also been trimming his hair to look neater, washing his face better, getting good sleep and cleaning the apartment with the windows left open so that his place was less gloomy. It improved his mood noticeably. He still needed time to brood on and off now and again, but he’d been inspired to help things get better. Grimmjow passively watched the television too.
“I hope I’m not being a pest, I just like your company a lot,” Ichigo mentioned.
Grimmjow turned his eyes down from the television to carefully lift Ichigo’s hand, the one that had been smashed in his door a week earlier, and it was looking so much better. He chastely kissed the back of it and then let it go back to its owner and went back to passively watching TV. “Not at all.”
Ichigo hummed happily and bit his lip as he watched the characters on the television screen but thought more about that gesture and Grimmjow than anything on the TV. He started chewing on his lower lip a little bit more. “You’re an unlikely friend but I’m glad that we know each other now.” He cozied up more to the firefighter and patted Grimmjow on the chest with a hand. Oh no…those pecs were pretty solid… Before this Ichigo had days to keep considering how he wanted to recover, and he definitely knew that he wanted to recover by having another meaningful relationship. Maybe if things turned out right it could be this one… “Do you think it’s rebound if I asked you out?”
Grimmjow’s eyes shifted down again. “Nah…” Years were a lot of time, that seemed quite out of bounds for rebounding. “Why?”
“Because I wanted to ask you out. I want to live happily and have another relationship. Nothing replaces my first…but I think this could be good. …what about you?”
“Why would you date an old fucker?”
Ichigo sat up and poked Grimmjow on the shirt-covered pec. “Because he’s a good person that does good things…and his dad-bod kind of turns me on. I’m an adult. I’m allowed that! Besides, you’re not even salt and pepper yet! You can’t be more than forty-five.”
“Forty-one…” Grimmjow still thought of himself as old, and if he was uninterested in this idea he wouldn’t have indulged more of the conversation…but maybe he was keen to this new thing.
“Well when you start getting salt and pepper or white I’ll dub you a ‘silver fox’ so you feel good about it. Until then you’re a very nice firefighter I happen to know.” Ichigo smiled cheekily. “Guess my age.” He sat up proudly trying to look his best. Appearances could be deceiving, even natural ones.
Grimmjow stared with a neutral expression, “Twenty-five.”
“Thirty-two!” Ichigo said that with a bit of proud swagger because he knew Grimmjow wasn’t going to guess it right and he was proud of his youthful features; this week had also breathed fresh life into him and he felt younger and that surely helped.
“What?!” Grimmjow’s neutral expression broke and he looked the other man up and down once rather quickly by just moving his eyes. “You’ve gotta be kidding me…” This guy looked younger than that.
“I’m thirty-two and I have a crappy school ID to prove it.” The younger man whipped out his wallet and put the card up in the other man’s face. “Thirty-two. But my hair wasn’t so orange back then…” Ichigo’s natural hair was a light brown. Grimmjow pushed the other man’s hand down and Ichigo suddenly realized a change on his friend’s face. “Uh?”
“‘Kurosaki’? Like the clinic?” Grimmjow had read Ichigo’s surname on the card.
“Yeah…” Ichigo answered while tucking his wallet away. That was his father’s clinic. Ichigo’s family, himself included, liked to help out in that place when they could…but Ichigo never boasted about it. “Why?”
Grimmjow remembered being brought to that clinic several times for various medical needs. It was a nice place. Friendly staff. Cute nurses. A real comforting spot to get fixed up at. They’d helped him out but never scalped him for money, even with insurance, nor made it difficult to get imaging and tests. “Just…good people working there.” He smiled handsomely. “Been there before.” Did he remember seeing someone like Ichigo there?
Alright, that smile sealed it! Ichigo scooted up a little. Nervously he offered his uninjured hand out like it was for a shake. “Boyfriend?”
“This a business transaction?” Grimmjow teased as he shook Ichigo’s hand firmly.
Ichigo fretted a little! “Yeah? No… Maybe?”
“Well if it is, your end is to seal it with a kiss, if-” Interrupted Grimmjow almost jumped as he received a sudden smooch. Oh…those lips were soft… For all he’d known in life, these new times with Ichigo’s curious company brought him a fresh ebullience – life breathed back into him. Now Grimmjow was happy, not grouchy and alone. His partner’s fingers moved over his face and the cute younger man came back from the kiss grinning. “What?” Grimmjow was puzzled by a reaction like that.
Ichigo just giggled helplessly. He didn’t really know why he was giggling!
“Whaaaaat?” Grimmjow croaked with puzzlement. Their relationship was bound to be full of playfulness…this fortunate rebirth of happiness…just one manner of renewal of spirit and recovery. The proof that healing is possible especially when people connect.
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