Work Text:
“Are you going inside?”
“Quiet. I’m thinking.”
Kei sighed, little furry sides heaving with the force of it. She pointedly began licking her paw as Shinji contemplated the tent flat in front of him. Around them, the camp was dark and largely quiet, outside of the normal patrols. It was well past midnight, but he could still see light from the crack in the tent’s opening. Ichigo was still awake.
Ichigo seemed to always be awake these days.
“He already knows you’re here anyway,” Kei pointed out. “You know how much better he’s gotten at sensing people.”
Kisuke had worked Ichigo to the bone on that after he’d lost most of the sight in his left eye during their latest clash with Aizen. He was lucky he hadn’t lost it entirely, but he was nearly blind in it now—Kisuke had refused to let Ichigo go out on the normal patrols until he could sense well enough to guard his new weak side. Ichigo had thrown himself into like he’d thrown himself into every aspect of his training and every aspect of this long, harsh war—with utter focus and so much intensity that Shinji worried endlessly about him.
“All right,” he said and gathered his courage.
He pasted on a smile as he ducked through the tent’s flat. Ichigo didn’t look at him, but Akimitsu was watching from the cot, luminous orange eyes thoughtful. He was a little too big for the tent, even though it was one of the largest they had. Kei chirped and bounded over to him, landing neatly on his head between his ears and folding herself into a comfortable ball as she began to groom his fur. Akimitsu relaxed a little, eyes going half-mast as a rumbling purr started in his throat.
But when Shinji looked at Ichigo, he didn’t look relaxed at all. He was bent over the tiny work desk he’d managed to fit in here, neck hunched at an uncomfortable angle, his entire focus on the spread of maps in front of him. He had to know Shinji was there—between his own increased sensitivity and the fact that Shinji’s daemon was currently giving his a rough tongue bath—but he didn’t look up as Shinji approached. There were deep grooves on his forehead, stress lines that seemed more permanent with every day they spent in Hueco Mundo, stuck in deadlock against Aizen’s army. Zangetsu was propped up in a corner, ready to be put to use at any moment and Ichigo’s kosode had been pulled off, leaving him in only in his shitagi.
“You should be sleeping, you know,” Shinji said.
The maps were what they’d been able to cobble together of Aizen’s base, deep in the mountains. Very few of their scouts ever made it back from there and the information the returning ones were able to provide was never very much.
Ichigo made a low, irritated noise. “Kisuke says there’s going to be another attack. Soon.”
Akimitsu made a low, rumbling noise. Shinji spared him a look but Kei was already patting his face with her paw, getting him directly on his big nose.
“Down, kitty,” she said. “You need to learn to relax.”
“She’s right, you know,” Shinji said. “You’re running yourself into the ground like this.”
Ichigo finally looked at him. His dark eyes were distant, as if he was looking past Shinji at something else. He’d grown up a lot in the past two years of fighting—even more so in the last six months, when the old man finally fell and everyone had put their hopes for the end of the war in Ichigo’s hands. It wasn’t right, Shinji thought, not for the first time. Ichigo had been living his life before all of this and his only real connection to this whole, sorry affair was having shinigami blood and too much loyalty to his friends. They shouldn’t have put their burden on him, even if Shinji knew there was no one else who was better suited to take it—no one alive, anyway.
“I don’t have time,” Ichigo said. He didn’t sound bitter about it, only tired. “The last time we weren’t prepared…”
Shinji sucked in a breath. The last time they’d been hit unaware, they’d lost nearly a fourth of their own army, among them Ichigo’s father.
“I know,” Shinji said. He’d lost Hiyori in the same fight. “But this isn’t good for you, Ichigo. You’ll die from exhaustion before Aizen ever gets his hands on you.”
“I’m fine,” Ichigo said, straightening a little as his mouth took on the stubborn tilt that Shinji was, unfortunately, all too well-acquainted with. “I’ll just look this over a little more and then we’re going to bed.”
He was such a bad liar still. It was almost endearing. Shinji looked at Akimitsu, who shrugged his giant orange shoulders.
“We’re planning to,” he said.
“That doesn't mean you will,” Kei told them crossly. She tapped Akimitsu on his nose again, harder this time. “Listen to Shin-chan. He knows what he’s talking about.”
Ichigo turned away with a wave of a hand. “We’ll do it, don’t worry.”
“That’s the thing, Ichigo,” Shinji said. “I am worried.”
“You don’t need to be. I told you, I’m—”
“—fine, yeah, you keep saying that, but all I’m seeing is those big old shadows under your eyes and that worry line that won’t go away.” Shinji pressed a gentle hand to Ichigo’s shoulder but it was immediately shrugged off. “When was the last time you slept more than a few hours, hm?”
“Don’t,” Ichigo said, viciously enough that Shinji actually took a step back. Ichigo’s face was feverish and set when he turned back to Shinji, eyes bright and hard. “I don’t need a babysitter, Shinji. I’m leading you guys, aren’t I? We’re all still alive, aren’t we?”
“Yeah,” Shinji said, holding up his hands to try and calm Ichigo down a little. “But you’re running yourself into the ground to make that happen.”
“I’m not running myself into the ground—”
“You barely sleep, you don’t eat—”
“I’m busy, Shinji! Running this fucking war!”
“You’re so busy you can’t even take care of yourself or Akimitsu! You’re wasting away, Ichigo, and I know we need you but—”
“But nothing—”
“Ichigo!”
“I know what I can handle.” Ichigo hit the desk once, a hard rap. His mouth was firm, shoulders tight. “You’re not my—my father or something, Shinji. You don’t get to decide what’s best for me.”
Shinji lost it, just a little bit. He took three steps forward until he was directly in Ichigo’s face, practically nose to nose with him. Ichigo’s eyes widened.
“I know you think you can handle everything on your own,” Shinji said in a low, fierce voice. “Hell, you probably can. But I hate to see what it’s doing to you, Ichigo. I don’t want to see you—like this.”
Ichigo’s gentle sigh was warm against Shinji’s face. “Like what?” he asked.
“Wasting away. You can take a break every now and then. I promise it won’t end the world.”
“You sure about that?” Ichigo sounded wry now instead of frustrated and his eyes were thoughtful again. “I guess I can sleep now,” he said after a moment, a little grudging. “I don’t see how an extra hour or two’s going to help anyway.”
“It’s more like an extra four hours,” Akimitsu piped up from the bed.
Ichigo was usually up with the sun. “You only sleep for two hours a night?” Shinji asked, aghast. “Ichigo.”
“I’m not some kid,” Ichigo said.
He was, though. Or he’d used to be. Shinji still remembered that Ichigo with a melancholy fondness; how he’d flailed and joked and generally acted more like the teenager he actually was. This grim man had very little of that boy left in him and it was a damn shame.
Ichigo stood. Shinji was going to step back, let him have his space, and leave him to his well-deserved rest, but Ichigo immediately wavered on his feet, face slackening. Shinji lunged for him and managed to steady him before he collapsed. Ichigo blinked rapidly, face flushing.
“Um,” he said.
Shinji knew his face was darkening. “Have you eaten anything at all today?” he asked in an ominous voice.
Ichigo cringed. “Um.”
“That’s a big no,” Akimitsu said cheerfully. “In our defense, we did get a sandwich, but he forgot about it.”
Ichigo gave his daemon a betrayed look. “Traitor,” he hissed.
“Well, you never listen to me when I try to mother you,” Akimitsu said, unrepentant. “Maybe you’ll actually listen to Shinji.”
“You didn’t eat at all?” Kei asked. Shinji knew she was playing up her horror, but only a little bit. Ichigo had far too much reiatsu and fought way too much to be skipping meals. “That’s not just lax, Ichi, that’s dangerous.”
“I know, I know,” Ichigo mumbled. He shrugged off Shinji’s hands. His ears were red. “I’ll be better about it. Can you go now? I should sleep.”
“Are you actually going to sleep or are you going to wait until we’re gone and go right back to those maps?” Kei demanded, propping her paws up on Akimitsu’s head so she could stand tall enough to nearly look Ichigo in the eye. Her little snouted face was fierce. “Don’t lie.”
Ichigo sighed. “If I don’t study those plans—”
“We’ll survive,” Shinji said. He eyed Ichigo and came to a decision. “Well, if you don’t sleep willingly, this is gonna take extreme measures. On the bed, Ichigo.”
Ichigo froze. It wasn’t until Shinji saw how red his face was getting that he realized exactly how that had sounded. Shinji grinned from ear to ear, a little amused at how embarrassed Ichigo was. There was that kid he’d known shining out. It was good to see him.
“Nothing like that, I promise,” he said, though he did it with a little wink. Couldn’t let Ichigo get too comfortable. “I think a massage will help, though. You definitely have some serious tension in your back.”
“A… massage?”
Ichigo sat down warily on his cot. Akimitsu grumbled but slunk off of the bed, pressing his broad head into Ichigo’s palm for just a second. Shinji deliberately ignored the way Ichigo’s hand almost brushed Kei’s fur—if she had wanted to avoid that, she would’ve. Akimitsu took up sentry in a corner of the tent, trying to be as unobtrusive as a three-meter long tiger possibly could. Kei stayed perched on his head, watching avidly.
“It will help,” Shinji said. “It’ll even make it easier for you to fight. Win-win all around. Now, take off your shirt.”
Ichigo blushed again. Shinji had a brand new toy and it was so much fun. He grinned again, winking, and Ichigo scowled at him. He took off his shitagi, shrugging it off his shoulders and leaving him bare from the waist upwards. Shinji carefully kept his own expression casual at the sight of Ichigo’s bare chest. He hardly wanted Ichigo to know that there was any real intent behind Shinji’s flirting.
Any lust he felt died off at the sight of the scars on Ichigo’s left shoulder, deep and gnarled. It had taken three weeks for him to heal from those injuries and it had been so touch and go that he’d almost died nearly four times. Shinji reached out and pressed one finger to them, taking in the texture of the scar tissue. Ichigo inhaled sharply but didn’t stop him.
Ichigo had gotten injured because he’d been fighting Aizen alone. Shinji had always regretted that he’d been pulled away into a fight with Starkk, unable to come to Ichigo’s aide until the very end of the fight, when he and Kisuke had teamed up to rescue Ichigo before Aizen could strike his final blow. It was one of the few times Shinji hadn’t been at Ichigo’s side during battle and he’d vowed after that that he would always watch Ichigo’s back. Take care of him. Make sure he came out of this war alive.
Time to keep his promise.
“Lay down on your stomach,” Shinji said. “I don’t suppose you have any oils?”
Ichigo’s flush went all the way down his neck. “No,” he said, shoulders bunching. “No, why—”
“It makes things easier,” Shinji said. “Never fear, I can work without them. Lay however you like.”
He approached the bed. He could practically see Ichigo’s rising tension but he ignored it, settling at Ichigo’s hip and considering the best way forward. Most of Ichigo’s tension had to be in his upper back and neck—Shinji couldn’t really give him a proper neck massage with his head tilted to the side, but he’d do his best with what he had. He took a deep breath and put his hands down.
Shinji had given plenty of massages before. He enjoyed it. He’d learned it back in Soul Society when he’d been dating a woman who still carried ghost pains in her lower back from the violent way she’d died, but he’d used it on pretty much everyone he was close with, including all of the other visored. It was intimate, but it wasn’t really sexual, and Shinji enjoyed being able to help out his friends.
Ichigo was different. Ichigo seemed determined to set himself apart from everyone else Shinji knew, to carve out a separate, distinct place for himself in Shinji’s life. Shinji still wasn’t quite sure what Ichigo was to him, but it was hardly anything as simple as a friend.
Still, despite the miles of warm skin suddenly exposed to him, Shinji kept things as professional as he could. He found the largest knots of tension in Ichigo’s back—in between his shoulder blades, at the base of his spine, the arch of his neck—and worked at them. Ichigo made low, groaning sounds as Shinji dug his fingers into each knotted muscle that turned into harsh gasps as the muscles eventually gave way and the tension eased out. Shinji pointedly ignored any response he had to those noises—he was here just to help Ichigo relax enough to fall asleep. That was it.
Of course you are, Kei whispered along their Tether, sly.
Shinji shot her a warning glance, which nearly undid him. Akimitsu was no longer sitting placidly in the corner, trying his best not to take up too much space. At some point since the massage began, he’d stretched out along the floor, belly up, purr rumbling out and eyes entirely closed, feline mouth turned up into a distinct smile. The fur on his belly was very pale and looked soft. Shinji’s entire hand tingled with the urge to touch it. Kei sat on the floor next to him, her face propped up on Akimitsu’s belly and full of smug amusement.
Shinji looked forcefully away even as he felt a flush build up his spine, making his entire body fill with heat. He forced himself to focus on Ichigo’s back, soothing away every knot and point of tension until Ichigo was breathing deeply, spread out and rumbling like his daemon. Shinji stood back and resisted the urge to ask Ichigo if he wanted a leg massage too. A foot massage. Anything that would keep Shinji’s hands on him for just a few more minutes.
“Ichigo?”
Ichigo made a low, questioning noise. Shinji bent and gently turned his face. The heat in him dissipated a little. Ichigo was clearly minutes from sleep, eyes half-closed and mouth slack. All of the wrinkles between his eyebrows had utterly disappeared. He looked so much like his old self. Shinji ran a hand through his hair, unable to resist.
“Sleep,” he said. “We’ll look at the plans in the morning.”
Ichigo blinked slowly at him. “‘kay,” he murmured.
His eyes closed. Shinji heard a huge, feline sigh and turned as Akimitsu clambered to his feet, slow and clumsy, eyes half-mast. Shinji froze as the big cat brushed past him, his fingers so nearly touching the fur of his shoulder. Akimitsu flashed him a quick look and then, to Shinji’s shock, winked at him. Shinji stared as he clambered onto the bed, ignoring the way Ichigo grumbled as he spread himself across his human like a living blanket. Ichigo didn’t seem troubled at all by the weight of the daemon that was taller and heavier than him—he turned and threw an arm over Akimitsu like he was just a giant teddy bear, burrowing his head into the tiger’s shoulder. The slope of his back was soft. Relaxed.
Kei clambered up Shinji’s hakama to leap on his shoulder, balancing there with the ease of long practice. She gave his ear a quick lick and for a long moment, they stood there, watching Ichigo and Akimitsu sleep. Shinji almost didn’t want to leave—he couldn’t shake the feeling that the moment he did, something would happen to disturb Ichigo’s well-deserved peace and rest.
“We can’t watch them sleep all night,” Kei whispered in his ear. “That’s creepy, Shin-chan.”
Shinji snorted. “All right, all right,” he said.
He hesitated. Before he could second guess himself, he stepped forward and pressed a brief kiss to Ichigo’s hair. Ichigo was already asleep but Shinji noticed a flash of eyes as he pulled away—Akimitsu looking at him. Shinji looked back and smiled.
“Sweet dreams,” he said.
He took one final look. He knew that this wouldn’t last—Ichigo was too stubborn and self-sacrificial to really let himself relax. But he wanted to preserve this moment of perfect peace in his mind, so he could remember it later. He collected all the details he could—the scars on Ichigo’s shoulder, paler than his normal skin tone, Akimitsu’s bright fur, the deep sound of their combined breathing, the way Akimitsu’s tail flicked ever so gently, Ichigo’s lax fingers draped over his daemon’s belly. Shinji and Kei sighed in unison.
“We’ll look after him,” Kei said, fierce. “He needs a keeper.”
Shinji laughed a little and turned for the door. “I’m telling him you said that. He’s going to yell at you.”
“I don’t care, it’s true. We’re looking after him, aren’t we, Shin-chan?”
Shinji took one last look. He smiled. “Of course,” he said and exited into the night.