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Chapter Text

Grimmjow had agreed to come to the shopkeeper's dumb little holiday party for two reasons. One, bribery involving free booze and a homemade teal-green sweater from the princess that kept his dick from freezing off in his gigai. And two, the vague promise that Kurosaki would show up at some point. He might've attended for reason two alone. Still, it was always entertaining to see what the others would throw at him to get Grimmjow to interact with Kurosaki in a setting that didn't involve violent fights in the basement. The reason why they did it was a mystery to him but, hey, free shit.

The party wasn't a massive affair like it'd been last year. Apparently, there had been enough incidents with a capital I that Tessai hadn't fully recovered and demanded a smaller celebration. To the point that he'd insisted on everyone being in gigais this year. Grimmjow couldn't say for sure what had happened at the last party. He'd taken one look at the shinigami population in a cramped building and knew he'd be uncomfortable all night. And he was, but he wasn't a coward either.

Too many drunk gazes curiously looking him up and down with either a warrior's estimate or something else more…well. He was reasonably sure the treaties didn't have clauses for that. It also didn't mark him anywhere in the realm of available or interested in the company.

And, sure, maybe he'd started a few fights. None of his had taken place anywhere other than the training bunker. He had some manners. Either way, Grimmjow figured that events occurred while he was busy grinding shinigami into a drunk paste. Good times.

This year the crowd consisted of the living world occupants, a couple of arrancar comprised of himself and Nelliel, and a handful of shinigami from Soul Society. He hadn't really bothered to catalog anyone beyond their threat level. Which was low enough with everyone in fake bodies for him to fucking decompress for once. Names had been wiped from half-right to forgotten completely about three drinks ago.

Alcohol and food choices were scattered on every available table surface in the shop. Mostly baked goods that were too sweet for Grimmjow's taste. Garish holiday decorations were pinned haphazardly on the walls with no order. A photo of the place might be next to the word tacky if he bothered to look it up.

Holiday music was leaking out of hidden speakers from seemingly everywhere and nowhere. Apparently, one drunken fist too many had destroyed some last year due to universal hatred for Uruhara's taste. Again, Grimmjow could proudly say he was too busy getting into drunk fights in the bunker to have anything to do with it for once.

His lower half was currently shoved underneath Uruhara's kotatsu, every limb in his body already warm and relaxed with alcohol, splayed out on the floor just enough to be a tripping hazard. Grimmjow wasn't fully drunk yet, but he was well along on the journey to get there. Not his fault Kurosaki was late, and he got bored. He admittedly hadn't promised to be sober until the fucker showed up.

Yeah, it was worth holding out for the sweater alone. Grimmjow was cozy as fuck right now, and the living world winter could cry about it.

Nelliel was to his right, also in a gigai, in a long pink sweater dress and leggings, and looked just as comfy as he was. Their relationship was something he'd mentally boiled down to war comrades. Nelliel liked to use the word friend behind his back. Either way, they'd developed a level of trust he hadn't had since his fracciones were killed. She currently was fully taking advantage of her earned privilege of being allowed to touch him by raking her fingers through his hair. Often, Nelliel would turn his head this way or that just to enjoy the pliancy alcohol had installed in his usually stiff neck.

"It's no fair that you have the softest hair," she told him with a pout, "And you never let anyone but me touch it unless you're drunk." Nelliel sighed and put her nails into it when he narrowed his eyes at her. He automatically tilted his head into the scraping on his scalp. Okay, that felt nice enough to let her keep mouthing off. She continued, "The worst part is you clearly like it, you overgrown cat." Grimmjow flipped her off in response even as his eyes slid shut in evident enjoyment. His hairstyle was utterly loose from its gel at this point, but he couldn't bring himself to care. Nelliel's other hand thumbed his eyebrows, "And still you and your weird little eyebrows won't stop scowling and relax for once."

"Bite me," Grimmjow deadpanned, knowing she was probably the one hollow in existence who wouldn't take that as an open invitation. Gigai or not.

"He'd probably give you indigestion, Nel-san," Another female voice floated in as a warm presence settled in on his other side. Grimmjow cracked open one eye to observe Inoue Orihime smiling at him. The one with a bit of friendly venom to it that she seemed to reserve for him. There was also an uncharacteristic glint of mischief to her eyes. The princess settled her hands in her lap before announcing, "Ichigo lost a bet to Yoruichi-san."

Grimmjow opened both eyes, and Nelliel's hand paused in his hair as they both turned their full attention on her at the promise of Kurosaki related gossip. It was one of their shared interests for vastly different reasons. Even now, a few years into a relationship that was closer to rival sparring partners than enemies, Grimmjow felt a thrill at the phrase 'Ichigo lost'. He felt a grin as sharp as razor wire creep across his face.

"Really?"

"What's his punishment?" Nelliel asked, with a little too much excitement.

Inoue hummed for dramatic effect, milking the two arrancars' attention for all it was worth. "I think it was another shunpo contest, betting on a certain margin of improvement." Grimmjow snorted at that. It really wasn't a matter of whether Kurosaki could evade Yoruichi but betting on how long. He knew from observing that Kurosaki had enough speed to keep his old teacher on her toes. Still, he was also an easy target for her to trick. Grimmjow took pride in the fact that his own evasion record was much higher.

"How long?" Grimmjow asked anyway.

"Twenty-two seconds," Inoue said. Grimmjow's record of fifty-eight seconds was so safe there might as well be a child lock on it. He hoped it was still driving the shinigami insane. She continued to the good part, "Yoruichi-san decided she wanted to determine what Ichigo wore to the party tonight."

"Unlucky bastard," Grimmjow said with zero traces of sympathy in his voice.

"Did she say anything about what she decided?" Nelliel leaned forward over him, fingers dug almost painfully into Grimmjow's scalp, heavy palm pressing into his forehead. He let out a low noise of complaint. The only thing stopping him from poking her hard in the tit like a rude asshole was the fact that his own ear was also hanging onto the princess's every word.

Inoue giggled, "Oh that would ruin the surprise, wouldn't it? I think he'll be here soon enough anyway." Nelliel sulked a bit at that, but, wisely, she leaned back into her original sitting position. Her fingers continued lazy trails through his hair, an act of almost apology. The two women started talking about stuff unrelated to his interests, such as knitting of all things. Apparently, Nelliel wanted to learn since she adored her sweater so much. Blah blah blah. Grimmjow eventually tuned them out completely.

He pondered what stupid thing Yoruichi was going to force on Kurosaki. It depended on how petty she was feeling; Grimmjow knew that. It could range from a t-shirt that said 'Slowest Baby in Karukura!' to something skimpy Kurosaki would never willingly wear otherwise. Or a mixture of the two. The latter seemed cruel due to how fucking cold it was, so Grimmjow was secretly rooting for that option. That way, he could continue hogging the kotatsu and make Kurosaki pissed about it without even moving.

At some point, attention refocused onto Grimmjow specifically.

"I don't think I've ever seen Grimmjow so calm. Do you think he'd try to bite me if I also pet him?" The princess joked, a weird quiet delight in her voice.

Grimmjow's lip started to curl. He wasn't a fucking pet.

"If you scratch him behind his ears, it kinda works like an off button," Nelliel informed her cheerfully like the dirty little traitor she was.

His eyes fully opened as he began to spit out a warning, "Nelli-"

Too late. Nails dug in hard directly behind his ears. Grimmjow's jaw went slack as he felt his pupils bloom wide open. A bizarre cocktail of embarrassment and pleasure immediately mixed in his chest. His eyelids fluttered shut again as his whole body felt like it was about to melt into the floor.

"Finally, got his eyebrows to relax," Nelliel reported triumphantly, rubbing her thumbs around the shells of his ears in an apparent act of warfare.

"Is he…purring?" Inoue whispered, caught between bewildered and enthralled.

Was he? Fuck him and his weird leftover cat traits. If Grimmjow ever found proof that Aizen and his stupid, little magic rock left them be on purpose, he'd find a way to kill that immortal dickhead with a rusty spoon.

It took longer than he was proud to admit, but mortification eventually outweighed gratification. Grimmjow reached critical mass, twisted his body around and away from Nelliel's cursed magic fingers, and promptly crawled headfirst into a knee. Both women instantly dissolved into secretive female laughter. He was too preoccupied with swallowing down his fucking purring to pay much attention to them or whoever he'd bumped into.

"Hello, Ichigo," the princess managed to choke out around a giggle. A familiar voice greeted her back, then Nelliel, and finally-

"Grimmjow, my eyes are up here, you know."

Grimmjow didn't look up for a moment as a small part of him curled up and died a second time. Oh yeah, sure, of course Kurosaki had to see that shit, he thought to himself, why would he expect the universe to operate in any other fuckin' fashion? Suddenly, Grimmjow minded very much how disheveled his appearance was with tousled hair, sweater riding halfway up his waist, and the single small hot chocolate stain decorating the thigh of his gray jeans.

Eventually, he drew his eyes up the line of Kurosaki's body, urging internally that he'd mistake the red in Grimmjow's face as being alcohol-induced. Lifted his gaze from socks with festive candy canes on them. Dragged his eyes over red jeans that were tightly fitted enough not to be mistaken as belonging to anyone else. Climbed further still to land on a chest clad in a high-collared black sweater that was a bit more form-fitting than his own. The sleeves seemed to have more loose fabric, but it was hard to tell from the crossed arms. His hands were half hidden in them, fingers digging into the material. Nothing weird that stank of Yoruichi yet. Finally, Grimmjow's head was bent back uncomfortably to meet Kurosaki's warm brown eyes.

Or, they should have been warm.

They usually were.

Instead, they were blank, almost dark, and his usual scowl was more pronounced. Like Grimmjow was suddenly a challenging question on one of his college assignments tripping him up. Sizing him up and trying to categorize all the little parts to a more significant answer. What he was searching for, Grimmjow had no clue. But, it did make a wisp of unease float around his rib-cage.

Before he could ask Kurosaki what his damage was, a familiar trouble-making hand grabbed the hem of his sweater and yanked it down. Nelliel purposefully ran the knuckle of her thumb hard along his spine like the menace she actually was. Hadn't been expecting it, and Grimmjow had had little to no self-control against his body's reaction. It felt like he was watching his own personal hell unfold as his spine arched into the touch and a repressed, loud purr burst from his chest like a thundercloud.

He watched as Kurosaki's eyes went from hunting for an answer to cold and hard like two chips of frozen earth. It almost felt like Grimmjow's own raw soul was suddenly being encased in ice. There wasn't exactly what he'd call a murderous intent, but it sure felt like a close cousin.

Well, problem one had to be dealt with first. The one that was currently still digging her thumb into his lower back and giggling. Dropping his ass out of her reach, Grimmjow turned sharply to spit out a long string of insults and complaints at Nelliel in Spanish. Behind them, with a festive mug of something in his hands, Sado turned their way to raise both eyebrows at the scandalous content.

Nelliel just continued laughing, "Lo siento! Lo siento! Eres demasiado fácil de bromear, Grimm!"

"Vete al infierno," Grimmjow hissed out through his bared teeth, inches from her smiling face. Despite his posturing, Nelliel could clearly read the lack of murderous intent in his eyes, the piece of shit. Her own body language remained loose and relaxed, palms in view to show that her prank was over and done with.

Giving his entire upper body a loose shake, Grimmjow was beyond pleased to discover that his outburst had completely disrupted his reaction to her antics. Which would make it far easier to pretend that everyone had heard things if he was asked. Or flat out ignore the question.

The shock of turning back to find Kurosaki walking away from him knocked the air out of his lungs for two reasons. Number one, of course, being something along the lines of 'What the fuck? How dare you?' The second one quickly overshadowed that. Because it turned out that backless sweaters existed, and this one stank of Yoruichi's signature.

Three red buttons sat at the nape of Kurosaki's neck to hold the collar in place before opening up to the line of his spine and defined shoulder blades. The dark fabric only served to frame them better and draw the eye down the expanse of skin. It was tied off at the base of his back in a loose, drooping bow that hung over his ass. It was the classiest thing he had ever seen Kurosaki wear.

Grimmjow was entranced.

He'd shredded Kurosaki's clothing in spars more often than he could count. Perks of having built-in knives on all his fingers. There was a lot of skin that he'd seen that didn't particularly bother him. Hell, he'd bathed naked in the same hot spring as the guy post-spar. And, sure, Kurosaki wasn't bad to look at, but Grimmjow had been trying to keep those wires from getting crossed in his own brain. The last thing he wanted to do was lose their sparring matches just because he couldn't keep his eyes to himself.

But, there was something about a bare back that just got to his predator hind-brain in record time. Some evolutionary trait twisted up in a confused pile between the messages of 'prey' and 'attractive'. This culminated into a strong urge to drag the tips of his fangs down that space of skin just to see what would happen. Just lightly. Just once.

Had his mouth always been so dry?

A flash of purple hair and white teeth out of the corner of Grimmjow's eye reminded him that he was in public.

Yoruichi grinned down at him, showing every tooth, "So, did you enjoy my pick, you hot water stealing bastard?" Inoue's eyes went wide as she wisely covered her smile with one hand. Nelliel's jaw dropped in an open-mouthed grin of pure mischief, looking back and forth between them.

It instantly became clear to him that he'd been higher on Yoruichi's shit list than Kurosaki for awhile now. And, short of tossing Kurosaki into a deep ravine before a weekly match, Grimmjow was infinitely more tricky to get back at in any meaningful way. His aspect had been destruction. He didn't hold onto many things with any expectation of permanence.

Clearly taking his stunned silence as defeat, Yoruichi reached down to take his forgotten cup of sake off the kotatsu and downed it in one go. Forgoing all rules of sipping slowly for one intoxicating pull of pure victory. She smacked her lips in sardonic satisfaction.

Grimmjow actively decided he'd had enough of women bullying him for one night. For the week. Nope, for his existence. So, he staggered to his feet and away from the hellish chorus of howling laughter behind him. There was nothing he enjoyed less than an uneven fight, and Yoruichi was the reigning queen of them. Better to get out of there with some remaining piece of his pride intact.

If she thought this would teach him anything about taking long showers, then she was in for a fucking surprise later. He just might put a hole in the water tank out of spite. That was on Grimmjow's to-do list for when he sobered up, however.

At the moment, he was still feeling entirely off-kilter due to one Kurosaki Ichigo.

Like a hopeless blue magnet, Grimmjow found Kurosaki talking to that short shinigami that he'd put his hand through when they first met. She'd never warmed up to him but did manage to settle into cold indifference. Probably more out of obligation to the treaties than anything.

Grimmjow preemptively shoved his hands into his pockets before he approached, thumbs curling tight into his belt loops. Better to remove temptation before he did something irreversibly stupid. Although, why the fuck did he feel the need to get closer if there even was a chance to do or say something dumb? His chest felt weird and fluttery. This was a bad idea, probably.

Saying hi is a bad idea? He asked himself mockingly; Pantera has introduced herself to his fucking inner organs too many times to count. Get it the hell together, Jaegerjaquez.

Shamelessly, he was staring at Kurosaki's back just a bit, which was why he noticed his muscles tense up as he walked closer. That flicker of unease turned to a slightly nauseous feeling in the pit of his gut. Or did he have one drink too many and lose count? No, he'd only had three.

"Hey, Kuro-"

"Renji!" The shinigami exclaimed, fake as fuck grin on his face, "It's been ages, you piece of shit!" Then, Kurosaki turned on his heel and made a beeline for that red-headed shinigami with the tattoos.

Meanwhile, Grimmjow's brain struggled to comprehend that he'd been ignored not once but twice. And that second time was a lot closer to being snubbed than anything. What the hell?

The short shinigami, Kuchiki, regarded him with disdain like he was a cockroach she'd noticed crawl out from under an appliance, "What did you do, Jaegerjaquez?"

Typically, accusations out of nowhere pissed him off. But, he'd just been on his way to that line of thought himself. So, he let the gears of his brain grind for a few seconds as he ran over more recent events. Three weeks had passed since their last spar because of Kurosaki's need to study for semester finals. Nothing unusual had happened then. And nothing had happened since. Grimmjow had been slowly tortured by his own boredom and inaction more than anything. There was so little recent interaction that Grimmjow had had no real opportunity to trigger this kind of response.

Grimmjow responded honestly, "How the shit should I know?"

Kuchiki raised a suspicious eyebrow at the hint of distress in his voice. Like she didn't believe him or, more likely, thought he was too dense to understand the reason why Kurosaki was apparently pissed at him. And if she knew it, she'd never tell him even if she personally froze hell over.

He flipped her off with a little extra acidity to the gesture. Kuchiki instantly lost her calm demeanor. She flipped him off with both hands directly in his face, stinging vitriol coming off her in waves.

"You're a child," She whispered venomously.

"Takes one to know one," Grimmjow fired back while settling into a disinterested expression. He smoothly dodged the kick she aimed at his shin before hopping off in Kurosaki's direction, again.

The tattooed shinigami helpfully abandoned his conversation with Kurosaki in favor of going over to Kuchiki to put a calming hand on her shoulder. He shot Grimmjow a look on the way that said, 'I want nothing to do with whatever fight is about to start'. Not a dumb idea to have. Kurosaki frowned morosely at his friend abandoning him, made brief eye contact with Grimmjow, and turned to march off towards that blonde, smug visored.

Two more times. Kurosaki gave him the cold shoulder twice more in the same exact fashion. Leaving mid-conversation to start up other conversations. The blond guy was smart enough not to breathe a word, but he did give Grimmjow a searching glance. Like he might have a knife in his pants or something. Which was ridiculous because Tessai had already confiscated the one he had found months ago.

The third person Grimmjow had been left stranded by for the night, near trembling with his building rage, was a woman around Kurosaki's age with short dark hair. Her reiatsu was plainly weak, but she had the eyes of someone who liked fighting to win. Grimmjow could sense a kindred spirit when he saw one. He distantly almost wished he could pause his active daydreaming of gutting Kurosaki to see what her deal was.

"You need a new approach," She told him seriously, with no mistrust or judgment in her voice. A suggestion that spoke of pure tactics, if he wanted it.

Well, it was that or cause a scene. And if he hated her idea, then the latter was still on the table. So, Grimmjow turned his full attention on her, easing the malicious set of his shoulders as a show of good faith. Nice as he could be, hands in his pockets.

She held out a hand, "Arisawa Tatsuki. Ichigo's oldest childhood friend. Or oldest bully. Whichever is called for." There was a flash of cooled animosity in her eyes. Definitely a kindred soul, Grimmjow liked her style already.

Grimmjow shook her hand. She had a firm grip for a human. "Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez," he paused for an accurate descriptor, "Kurosaki's biggest ongoing headache."

Tatsuki's eyes crinkled with amusement, approval clear as daylight, "That last name is a mouthful."

"Don't bother with it. Only people that seem interested in learning it usually have a fucking grudge against me anyway," he said with an eye roll.

"Undeserved?"

"I didn't say that," Grimmjow grinned, showing his fangs.

If she found his teeth unsettling, it didn't show on her face. Tatsuki merely gave him a clinical once over in response, seemingly measuring him up for a fight out of ingrained habit. Her stance spoke of someone familiar with hand to hand. Grimmjow would have to pursue that interesting tidbit another day, however.

"So, what's this idea?" Grimmjow cut to the chase.

Tatsuki met his eyes again, "Easy. Ignore him."

"... That's it?" Grimmjow's disappointment fell out in full force. Idea two was looking more and more enticing.

"Everything he's doing right now is to rile a reaction out of you," Tatsuki informed him, "He used to do this when we were kids. If you ignore him back, he'll start to feel guilty about it when he gets a taste of his own medicine. Then, he'll try to make up." She gave Grimmjow a pointed look, "And then you don't have to make a fool of yourself in front of all his friends."

"Huh," Grimmjow gave his jaw a thoughtful scratch, right where his mask was supposed to be.

Tatsuki waved a hand at him, "Just go back to whatever you were doing for fun before he arrived."

So, that was how Grimmjow ended up back at the kotatsu, in an upright position this time. He was facing the room towards everyone else but pointedly not looking in the direction of ginger hair, slowly sipping his warmed sake. Yoruichi was the only other at the table, seated across from him, frowning deeply as she drank her own cup. Tatsuki's suggestion was unexpectedly a two for one deal. The tricky woman was clearly at a loss as to why he wasn't chasing her nice, shiny bait around the party and making an idiot of himself.

"More sake?" Grimmjow asked her jeeringly as soon as she finished her cup. It was a well-known fact that he never bothered to pour sake for anyone but himself or Nelliel. Or Kurosaki, if he was far enough gone. But this was pure rubbing salt in the wound of a plan that backfired. Sticking the cat's nose in its own shit on the living room floor.

Yoruichi's gold eyes narrowed to slits at the insult but accepted the sake anyway. It was a look that promised retribution later. She took a calm sip that outwardly betrayed none of her intentions, "So, are we toasting to anything in particular?"

"New friends and good fuckin' advice," Grimmjow said with an easy grin, already well into the territory of tipsy. He raised his cup to the air in the general direction of Tatsuki. Grimmjow finished his sake in one go, then waited while giving Yoruichi an expectant look.

She looked like she'd rather have all her fingernails pulled at once than pour him liquor. But, the social politeness of being at a party, combined with some facts about her behavior at last year's event, led to Yoruichi pouring his next cup of sake. The first sip went down smooth like a hard-won victory.

"Since when do you make friends?" She asked with the barest trace of vehemence.

He smiled sharply over the lip of the cup, "Wouldn't you like to know, fleabag?"

A hand holding a platter of cookies chose that moment to block the beginnings of their staredown as they set it on the table. Grimmjow looked up to see Kisuke swaying slightly on his feet, cheeks and neck flushed red with alcohol. The shopkeeper planted himself directly next to Yoruichi and leaned his head on her shoulder. Her face softened, catfight with Grimmjow temporarily forgotten.

"How much have you had, you lightweight?" Yoruichi asked him, pulling him closer with one hand on his waist.

"Tessai cut me off," Kisuke offered with a pout, wrapping his own arms around Yoruichi's midsection.

"So, you don't remember?"

Kisuke rubbed his stubbly face on her arm, scratching an itch maybe, "I had two."

Yoruichi barked out the short laugh of someone enjoying an age-old joke. She picked up her own sake cup, "I'm on drink four and just starting to feel something."

"Want to share?"

"No way, Kisuke, otherwise Tessai will crackdown on our new year party next. Save your bad choices for then."

They really were an odd pair, trio if you factored in Tessai. Despite having lived at the shop for several months while recovering from the last war, Grimmjow still couldn't precisely put a finger on what their exact relationships were. Ultimately, it wasn't any of his business anyway.

Secretly, Grimmjow blamed them for recent cracks in his defenses over the past couple of years. Defenses meaning his tendency to keep most assholes well out of threatening range. He'd watched Kisuke massage out a knot in Yoruichi's shoulder. Seen Tessai bring Kisuke tea without a word whenever he was in the middle of some weird blueprint. Observed both of them insist on picking up takeout whenever Tessai started to look a bit worn around the edges. A complicated language of watching each other's backs that Grimmjow was more familiar with than they probably gave him credit for. It made him wretchedly nostalgic and a little longing for having more than one pair of eyes looking out for him. Something that was bubbling up full force with Kisuke looking up at Yoruichi like she was an immovable constant.

So, Grimmjow dropped his gaze in favor of staring into his sake cup.

"Grimm."

He blinked away his thoughts before lifting his head to see Nelliel shivering violently, looking deeply confused. This probably marked the beginning of an explanation to a stupid idea that had gone wrong. Grimmjow narrowed his eyes, "What did you do?"

She sulked a little, "I just wanted to see if the snow was as cold as everyone said it was. I didn't know it was made of frozen water."

It wasn't really an answer to his question, so he maintained eye contact.

Nelliel deflated then muttered to her soaked socks, "I took a running start into the biggest snow pile because it looked really soft. I sank up to my legs, and it was really, really cold." She pouted at him from under her eyelashes, silently demanding an explanation about human nonsense and what she'd done wrong in this instance. Whether it was because she liked bothering him or because he was probably the hollow that knew the most about the living world, he couldn't say. Probably both.

"That's because you need warmer outer clothes in the winter, dumbass," Grimmjow explained acerbically, dropping his gaze to her socked feet, "Including boots. Otherwise, fragile human skin gets this fucked up thing called frostbite and starts dying on their living corpses."

Her hazel eyes widened in alarm, "Do I have it now?"

Yoruichi interjected, "No, usually something like that takes more time to become an issue. But, you should probably take off your wet socks and leggings to get warm again." She said the last part with a glint in her eye like the pervert she was. It didn't really matter since Nelliel's sweater was about mid-thigh anyway.

Nelliel, on the other hand, wasted no time stripping off said articles. More than a few pairs of eyes wandered as long tan legs escaped sopping wet fabric that was quickly abandoned on the floor. Kisuke let out a low wolf whistle that made Nelliel roll her eyes after she looked at him and observed how gassed he was.

It brought her attention to the man's position cuddled up with Yoruichi more than anything. She looked at them with a bright interest that Grimmjow glared at as the wheels started turning in her head. He wasn't surprised when Nelliel turned towards him, dropping her eyes towards the empty seat next to him.

"No," he said instantly.

Nelliel stuck out her lower lip.

"No!"

She stuck it out further, making her eyes big and pathetic. The fact that she could match him blow for blow when the mood struck her was never more insulting than in these moments. On the other hand, if he indulged her dumb whim, Nelliel would likely supply him with a spar when they got back to Hueco Mundo. Or at least, they might work on some team training. They were working their way up to Nelliel eating one of his Gran Ray Ceros to see what sort of damage that might pack.

Grimmjow let out a long hiss of breath through his nose before stiffly raising his arm. Nelliel brightened up instantly to drop into the space he'd opened up. She stuck her legs under the blanket of the kotatsu before boldly mirroring Kisuke by wrapping her arms around his waist. He draped his arm carelessly across her shoulder. Nelliel let out a content sigh, resting her head on his shoulder as she began to steal his body heat. She smelled like sugar cookies.

One of her hands dragged up his chest until she traced one finger lightly on his left collarbone through his sweater. Right on the edge of the crescent scar that she'd slobbered on years ago to save his life from being bled out by the same prick who'd cracked her skull. The tentative beginning of the Nnoitra's Leftovers club. Over time, Nelliel's touch to that scar came to mean one thing.

Relax. I won't let anything happen.

A nap wasn't quite in the cards yet, but closing his eyes for a bit might move Tatsuki's plan along if Kurosaki was watching. So, Grimmjow let his chin drop on top of Nelliel's teal head as she reached for Kisuke's platter of cookies. He placed the sake cup he'd taken one sip from in front of her before letting his eyelids slip shut.

"How long?" Nelliel asked around a mouthful of baked goods.

Grimmjow tried not to think of the crumbs she was getting everywhere, "Twenty minutes." If he did end up falling asleep, he didn't want to be out for the night.

"Gato perezoso."

"Cállate," he growled out, actively rubbing his cheek on her head to mess up her hair.

Not even three minutes passed before the hair on the back of his neck stood up. Some instinct in the back of his mind blaring alarm bells. Blearily, Grimmjow jerked up from something that was almost sleep. He sharpened his senses rapidly, feeling out for the threat.

To the right.

Only for Kurosaki to knock the air clean out of his lungs for the second time that night. This time with an expression so murderous, it made Grimmjow check his own hands for blood. In case he somehow committed a homicide of one of Kurosaki's friends in his three minute nap. Because Grimmjow couldn't comprehend any other reason why the fuck that face would look at him like that. Finding them clean, a bruised feeling started to kick about his chest.

What the fuck did he do?

As it usually did with Grimmjow, hurt quickly evolved to anger to hide the original emotion behind a wall of vitriol and bitterness. A wall that he wanted to sit on and throw Desgarrón from until the threat was ash. Made every muscle in his body clench with the sudden need for action, violence, destruction. So, he responded to Kurosaki's expression by showing the edge of his teeth in a clear challenge.

What the fuck was his problem?

"Grimm."

With predator slowness and deliberation, he tore his gaze from Kurosaki's direction to turn to Nelliel, every instinct of decimation still threatening to burst out of his chest. She'd clearly felt him tense up. She frowned, gaze flicking between the two of them like she was equally puzzled.

Nelliel sighed, "Go outside if you're going to fight or go calm down, please." A soft plea for Grimmjow not to completely wreck the party she was enjoying with his personal grudge. It brought him down from boiling over with rage to just boiling.

"Okay," he managed to breathe out around the fire in his chest, "okay." Grimmjow disentangled himself from her, standing up to shove his trembling hands deep into his pockets. His eyebrow twitched as she searched his face, "Gonna use the bathroom."

"Need me to do anything?" Nelliel asked, glancing behind him meaningfully.

"Yeah, crush his ribs." Translation: keep Kurosaki off his back until he was well away from the majority of the party. Also, crush his ribs. Grimmjow then set off towards the shop's end with one ear tilted towards where chaos would soon begin.

"Ichigo!"

"Wait, Nel, no!" There was the sound of bare feet running across tatami, a second of silence as Nelliel made her jump, and, finally, the sweet sound of crashing and banging followed by screaming. Most likely from one of Nelliel's signature rib cage crushing hugs. Fucker was lucky she was in a gigai or said rib cage would be dust.

He closed the bathroom door behind him with smug satisfaction as the shrieking continued. Grimmjow held that feeling close as he took care of business, four or five drinks really did go through a body. Then, he lost hold of it while washing his hands in the sink, flexing his fingers and missing his claws. Burning, seething anger returned full force and the whisper of hurt that it stemmed from.

Gritting his teeth, Grimmjow splashed his face with cold water a few times before remembering, fuck, he was wearing eyeliner. He looked up in the mirror and groaned at the streaks of green now running down his cheeks. Did he need to emulate his estigma in this fake body? No. Did he prefer it? Yes. He'd already learned the skill while stuck in the damn thing for months. Why not continue to utilize it?

Regardless, it felt like a lost cause tonight, much like his general peace of mind. So, he scrubbed at his face until there were just the faintest smudges of green still clinging stubbornly to the corners of his eyes. Good enough. Grimmjow made sure to use Yoruichi's towel to dry his stained hands. He also purposefully left a smear of green on the white sink for every drunk idiot after him to marvel at—especially ginger-haired morons.

His face scouring session had given him some opportunity to calm down a little. So, opening the bathroom door to see the shithead of the hour at the end of the hall looking at him was doubly infuriating. After he'd just put in substantial effort to not throw his ass through a door at the first opportunity?

The look Kurosaki was throwing him was less homicidal but still within the realm of confrontational. Packaged right in with a heaping amount of determination because Nelliel was still latched onto him like a teal-haired barnacle. She was clinging to his back with her arms wrapped around his head in a loose headlock and her legs crossed over his waist.

Nelliel pulled a face at Grimmjow that said, 'Well, now what?'

Grimmjow forced his own face to settle into cool disinterest. He knew for a fact that Nelliel had let Kurosaki get this far. Well, no further. Tatsuki's plan had promised him guilt, and he'd had yet to see it. So, Grimmjow was going to stick to ignoring the bastard. Not out of faith that it would eventually work but more out of spite at this point.

It was useful that one of his and Nelliel's shared remembered languages from their collective souls was Irish Sign Language. They had a few silent languages between them, but that one, of all things, was the one they shared.

So, he signed out rapidly, 'Hold him for a bit. I'm going outside.'

Nelliel flashed him a quick thumbs up before using all the strength she'd been holding back to send both herself and Kurosaki hurtling backward. Grimmjow was suddenly reminded of the time he found a turtle upside down on the side of the road. Lots of similarities in the desperate wave of limbs. The noise Kurosaki made was reasonably close to the scream of an upset reptile. Nelliel was making a great impression of a shell. Well, he sure wasn't going to right this fucker as he did with road turtle.

He left Kurosaki to his fate and slipped into the guest room that served as his bedroom during his time in the living world.

There hadn't been reason enough yet to drag out his winter gear. He wasn't a permanent resident of the living world, just a freeloading interloper that brought Kisuke neat shit from Hueco Mundo. And when it got cold, his visits outside of fight nights tended to drop. Yet, here he was, dragging the box out of the closet for one of the few reasons he'd ever consider going outside without hierro: pettiness.

Nelliel did ask him pretty politely to take it outside. Plus, he'd get the added benefit of shoving Kurosaki's face in the snow. Him and that stupid sweater.

So, on went his waterproof boots, his black beanie hat, and the fur-lined leather jacket that he'd won in a bar fight against some random human prick. He'd been with Kurosaki on that outing, and neither of them remembered much. Just alcohol, argument, jacket bet of some sort, and leaving the bar while supporting each other's combined weight from their dumbass ideas.

No matter how much every shinigami he'd ever met had tried to convince him otherwise, Grimmjow's opinion that windows were just as valid of an exit point as a door remained unchanged. Especially at Kisuke's when he wanted to avoid playing twenty questions about what he was going out to do with Kurosaki. Nosy bastards.

It had snowed a few hours ago. The snowfall type that had fluffy flakes that clung to everything and settled on the ground with a stubborn finality. Everywhere Grimmjow looked, it was blindingly white, reminding him of Hueco Mundo a bit. If it was teeth-chatteringly cold as frozen shit.

Still, there was something wondrous about the stuff. Or about how the heat of his breath solidified in the too still air when Grimmjow slid open the window. When his boots made a loud crunch in the snow, he shamelessly gave a few curious stomps just to repeat the noise. The quiet peace of it all pulled him in for a few seconds.

Just long enough for the sound of his bedroom door banged open with a violent clack to make him jump. Turning around to peer through the still open window, Grimmjow saw Kurosaki panting with herculean effort, knuckles white on the door frame. Nelliel was nowhere to be seen.

Grimmjow opened his mouth to demand he go get his boots and bring his shitty attitude outside for a fistfight, but the shinigami beat him to the punch.

Pointing a finger that looked just as pissed as Grimmjow felt, Kurosaki hissed out, "If you leave this party, Grimmjow, I'm not fighting you this week."

Pinpricks of icy distress stung as they spread on Grimmjow's shoulders and left a dull numbness in their wake. There was a pang of betrayal deep in his gut because Kurosaki never threatened that without a good reason. Grimmjow usually could figure out precisely what he'd done and correct it. Because whatever it was probably wasn't worth missing a fight. But, for fucks sake, he really had no clue what he'd done this time. Leaving a dumb party he hadn't really been planning on altogether exiting didn't seem like a good enough reason to invoke that.

Maybe Kurosaki was just sick of him.

And that thought sliced through him more viciously than any weapon. Made his jaw snap closed with the force of someone slamming a coffin lid shut. The wrongness of that feeling swirled like sewage in his chest.

Something must have shown through on his face. Because Kurosaki's anger snuffed out instantly for that look of guilt that Grimmjow had been working towards for most of the night. He even began approaching him with a mollifying sort of look on his face.

Grimmjow didn't care.

That slimy feeling was already mixing in with the buzz of rage in his ears. More familiar, more comfortable to deal with. Lashing out was easier than trying to figure out what the fuck was going on internally or externally.

It was with that mindset that his eyes landed on the garden box nailed just below the windowsill. During the warmer months, Yoruichi thought it was the funniest place to grow the catnip she enjoyed in her cat form. Grimmjow had never touched the stuff himself but liked to leave his window open to let the scent into his room. Currently, it was just a box with frozen dirt straining under the added weight of snow.

When Kurosaki reached the window with a soft 'hey', Grimmjow didn't hesitate for a second. He grabbed a handful of snow and dead catnip stems and drove it directly into Kurosaki's face. There was enough force to send him back onto his ass with an indignant squawk.

"You can take your stupid fight and shove it up your ass for all I care!" Grimmjow found himself shouting, even though he cared immensely. Then, he slammed the window shut so violently it made the entire wall rattle.

Well, there was no reason to stick around since he'd already pissed all over the threat held over him. So, Grimmjow vaulted his body over the backyard's low wall and took off down the cold streets. He wasn't even ashamed that he took off at a full sprint.

Pointedly ignoring the voice calling his name.

Chapter Text

The cold fucking sucked. Grimmjow had stopped running awhile back on account of, one, the dry air burning his stupid fake lungs, and two, sprinting on the ground that might get slippery would only lead to a cracked skull. He'd opted to settle into a quick stride instead, hands in his pockets as he glared at the empty street in front of him.

Without his hierro, the sting of winter was also making his bad shoulder act up. There was a deep, pulsing ache resonating from the crescent scar—the worst of it being centered around where Nnoitra's blade had snapped his collarbone like a stick.

Nelliel may have saved his life, but she was no doctor, especially when she was stuck in that child form. There wasn't really any way for them to tell at the time whether the bone was set correctly. The wound hadn't really interfered with his function after it healed, so they'd figure they'd at least hit 'good enough.'

Still, it loved to hurt like hell for no reason sometimes, especially in the gigai.

Grimmjow paused his march with a hiss and took a hand out of his pocket to massage the offending area. He tilted his head to the right with a grimace, digging his fingers hard into the tender muscle. Swallowing down a groan, he worked his way front to back over the rough skin until he'd alleviated a satisfactory amount of discomfort.

Belatedly, it dawned on Grimmjow that he'd forgotten his gloves. They were probably hidden underneath the scarf he'd ignored in his rush.

It was just going to be one fucking federal issue after another, huh?

There was about a snowball's chance in hell of him turning around to go back. So, Grimmjow simply tightened his fists in his jacket pockets, figuring that would have to be enough. Kisuke had built his gigai tougher than a regular human body anyway, knowing he'd be unlikely to accidentally break something if there was a layer of insurance. So, maybe, it could better withstand cold too? He was willing to risk a bet on it.

Kicking a chunk of ice into a wall just to see it explode, Grimmjow continued trudging through the quiet chill of the night. Thankfully, the streets were empty of people. No dealing with old people peering suspiciously at him like he might eat their grandchildren. Just white blankets of snow, the glaringly bright street lights, and his thoughts to keep him company.

Yeah, right. Like Grimmjow was gonna suffer the last bit any headspace willingly.

He was on a familiar trek, although it had been a few years. When he'd been stuck in the living world, it had become clear that fighting Kurosaki wasn't always going to be available to blow off steam when he needed it. So, he'd had to figure out an alternative when the shop's residents were driving him up the damn wall.

It turned out humans threw out shit all the goddamn time. And some of it ended up at the illegal dumping ground Grimmjow had found on the edge of Karakura. It was far enough out that nobody heard the sound from anything getting smashed. Or his peels of laughter from inflicting the damage. Plus, there had usually been new stuff to destroy every few weeks.

The thought that he might've been rampaging in a crime-related dumping ground didn't occur to him. Not until a group of men whose mugs were as shady as his own took a lunch break to holler encouragement at him while he took a pipe to a stained moped. Well, whatever, as long as they had no interest in stopping him, it wasn't like Grimmjow had room to judge whatever they got up to.

Besides, regular people from the area dumped their shit there, too. Which maybe discouraged the local criminals from leaving bodies or anything particularly nasty there.

So, when Grimmjow saw his usual pipe sitting perched on the tackiest homemade memorial shrine he'd ever seen, saying that he was confused was an understatement. Getting closer, he was further baffled by the incredibly shitty drawing of what could only be himself, given the scribble of blue hair. What the fuck?

'RIP Blue-chan :'(' said the description on the frame.

Did those criminal shitbags think he up and died? Just because he hadn't been around for a while? Well, technically… Also, what the hell was up with the dumb nickname? They hadn't known his actual name, and that was the one they picked? For fucks sake.

Grimmjow did end up staring at the whole setup for a good, long moment. Somehow, he knew in his gut this was the most anyone had ever actively mourned his absence. It didn't take having memories of his human life to guess around to how he became a hollow. Maybe, a few years back, this would've bothered him.

Now, he was a little oddly touched that these morons had gone to the effort.

Curiously, Grimmjow's pipe was set on top of a hinged box. He took hold of its familiar weight, slinging it over one shoulder while the other hand opened the container. Inside was a blue permanent marker, scraps of paper, and writing on the underside of the lid that said 'Write Blue-chan a message so he won't feel lonely!'.

A stab of something went through Grimmjow's chest as he reread the message on the lid. He silently ran his cold fingertips over it before dropping his hand into the box to grab a few slips of paper. Dropping the pipe to the ground momentarily with a clang, he began to read.

Nobody loved destroying trash like you. Rest in peace, you beautiful, violent bastard.

Your passion for garbage demolition always fired me up for the day!

I really miss seeing you take a pipe to windshields. That always seemed to be your favorite.

All the women in the neighborhood were basically in love with ya, did ya know? I used to think, 'hey man, leave some for the rest of us.' And then ya did, and I really hope I didn't jinx ya.

Grimmjow snickered as a strange warmth filled his chest. None of these people had done much beyond wave at him in a friendly manner. Through a giddy sort of energy, he couldn't help thinking that humans were really, really fucking strange.

Well, he might as well give the neighborhood a goddamn holiday miracle.

Grabbing the blue marker out of the box, Grimmjow wrote in big, obvious script on the top of the box: I'm not fucking gone! And my name is Grimmjow!!

That alone probably wouldn't be enough proof of life, especially with how weird his name was, according to everyone. Which meant he'd have to get to work doing what he came here to do anyway. Destroying a hapless amount of garbage into near unrecognizableness.

The illegal dumping grounds themselves were a short duck through a gap in a chained link fence into a semi-large clearing in some woods. How those crooks managed to get larger objects in here was still a mystery to him. It was dark and not illuminated at all by the street lights. But, that wasn't a problem since he retained his night vision even in his gigai. To his glee, there was a lot of half-broken furniture scattered throughout the usual trash piles. And, not one, but two cars with intact windows and windshields. Oh, it was shaping up to be a fucking outright riot of a night.

His iron pipe was biting into his hand with the cold, making it feel almost numb and nothing. An excuse to start moving and get some blood flowing. Or a sign of oncoming frostbite. Grimmjow was in the mood to gamble.

Standing on the hood of one car, Grimmjow raised the pipe high above his head with both hands. He wiped distraction from his mind and let every piece of rage, hurt, and violence that he'd accumulated the last few hours wash over him. Crash. Yoruichi's stupid meddling. Crash. Kuchiki looking at him like he was a fucking moron. Crash. Kurosaki's…everything. Crash. Crash. CRASH!

Grimmjow didn't slow his momentum as the pipe finally broke through the spiderweb of cracks in the windshield. He hooked it through the steering wheel, yanked himself into a cartwheel across the roof, and flicked the pipe free at the last second to bring it slamming down into the rear windshield. Both windshields reduced to crumbling chunks of safety glass; he threw the pipe to the ground with a clang and followed it with a front flip. Twisting around with a snarl, Grimmjow yanked open the driver's door then kept pulling. After what seemed like ten seconds too long of effort, he popped the whole door free and proceeded to use it to beat the rest of the car into submission.

When he deemed it a thoroughly unrecognizable pulp of scrap metal and glass, Grimmjow ripped out the steering wheel and tossed it like a frisbee towards his collected pile of them. Still there. Sappy ass crooks left it be, clearly.

Grimmjow let out a wild cackle as he snatched the pipe off the ground, taking a running charge at the second car. No thinking, just destruction. He immediately gave this car's windshields a similar treatment. But he slowed it down from there. Might as well savor this one before he moved onto smaller trash. With a swift kick, he knocked a side mirror into the air, then swung the pipe into it like a bat—glittering shards of mirror burst in the open air like a firework.

A substantial piece caught his eye as it twirled through the air, catching the streetlight before turning just enough to reflect the entrance to the dump. There was a flash of orange that made Grimmjow freeze in place. The soft clink of mirror raining down on the car's metal hood sounded more like a cacophony of gunshots. The remains of the plastic casing bouncing off the roof fell with the seriousness of a grenade. Someone might as well have shouted, 'Hey! Violent blue asshole this way!'

"Grimmjow?"

Fucking Kurosaki. There was a questioning lilt to his tone. Probably because it was dark and human eyesight wasn't worth jack shit. Grimmjow weighed the idea of standing completely still until the source of his irritation went away. Ultimately, he wasn't stupid enough to believe that would work in any universe. Kurosaki had the tenacity of a dog with its teeth in a hunk of meat.

Rotating towards the fence, Grimmjow didn't move further. He stood his ground with the pipe trembling in one hand in much the way he held Pantera when he couldn't make up his mind on if a threat was worth gutting on the spot. Little clouds of condensation formed from the angry, exerted huff hissing out from between his clenched teeth.

At first, Grimmjow just saw Kurosaki's bright hair haloed by the streetlights. But, his pupils contracted as his night vision adjusted far quicker than any human eye. Kurosaki had his fingers weaved into the fence, leaning forward into it with the look of someone who'd been running and squinting hard into the darkness Grimmjow was blanketed in.

Kurosaki suddenly scrambled for the hole in the fence, "I saw the flash of your eyes, Grimmjow! Don't move!"

Turning towards someone hunting you when they had their back to a source of light was such an effortless way to get eaten in Hueco Mundo. Grimmjow was more than a little mortified that he'd gotten riled up enough to forget basic facts.

He needed to destroy something right now before he whacked the pipe over Kurosaki's head and cracked it like a wet melon. Which was tempting solely on the basis that Kurosaki's presence felt like a menace to his already bruised ego. Outside of hollows, that was not a socially acceptable reason to brain someone. Especially not Kurosaki; otherwise, the bastard would be dead three times over in his shit human body.

Admittedly, Grimmjow preferred Kurosaki alive. A significant concession that he'd never said aloud.

So, Grimmjow's eyes roved over piles of trash as Kurosaki wriggled in through the fence. They fell on what had to be a television. However, it was very different from the sleek, flat version he'd seen in Kurosaki's house. The shop didn't have one, so, really, it was the only kind he'd seen. This one was a big, bulky box, topping the trash pile it was on like an unyielding crown. The front had shining, fragile glass rather than a smooth screen of plasma. A single silver antenna rose off the back of it jauntily, almost taunting.

Grimmjow hated it on sight.

Turning his back on Kurosaki jogging up to him, Grimmjow got into a batter's stance, even twirling the end of the pipe as if to charge it with his own frenzied energy. The footsteps slowed behind him as Grimmjow swung at full force.

There was a beat between the metal's connection to the glass where Kurosaki yelled, "No!" It was panicked and reedy.

One second later, there was a pop! and a discharge. A few sharp pains of his skin being lacerated registered in Grimmjow's brain. Then, his entire chest felt like it was being kicked with a reverberating force. It hurt like when he was an aduchjas, and another hollow with sharp hooves had used them to crack his outer armor. Then, for a few seconds, there was nothing but blackness.

Grimmjow blinked back into awareness when his back hit the ground. He hadn't entirely passed out; there had just had been a few seconds where he wasn't fully present. Dazed, his eyes stared unseeing up at the sky until a blur of orange and black appeared.

There was a ringing in Grimmjow's ears that a voice seemed to be trying to get through. Hands jostled at his shoulders, causing pain to shoot through his bad one. On instinct, Grimmjow connected his forehead with the orange blob with a snap.

"Ow, fuck!"

Oh, the orange blob was Kurosaki. Right.

The blur that was Kurosaki returned to his line of sight. No hands grabbed at him this time. It stayed like that for a few minutes as Grimmjow's eyesight refocused. Then, he blinked a few more times at Kurosaki, staring Grimmjow down intently, eyes flicking all over his face with a wide-eyed expression.

Grimmjow swallowed once before weakly managing, "What fuckin'. Happened?"

Kurosaki's eyebrows drew together like they'd seen a natural disaster occur and wanted to discuss how to best mitigate the damage. He glanced around at the carnage that Grimmjow had unleashed so far with that troubled grimace. The other side mirror fell off the second car with an audible crack onto the ground.

What? Did he think Grimmjow went on a mournful little walk to think his thoughts? Smoke a cigarette sullenly under a bridge? Yeah, right. Drink in the damage, asshole.

Kurosaki refocused his eye contact on Grimmjow, "That type of TV is called a CRT television. They're dangerous to destroy because they can hold an electrical charge for days after being unplugged and throw away. Also, uhhh, they have a tube in them that implodes from impact. My dad has had to treat injuries from them once or twice."

A trickle of blood slid into Grimmjow's hairline from a cut somewhere on his forehead. Using the heel of his hand, he wiped at it roughly. Next, he growled out in a low voice, "Fuckin' figures I'd pick a fight with the one piece of trash in this dump that bites back." He pulled back his hand to look at the blood and hissed out, "Shit."

"What? What is it?"

He'd fucked up his hands was what. The electricity had taken to the metal pipe like a clown to a shitshow. All the skin of his palms and fingers, minus the thumbs and heels, were a slowly reddening burn. They were also covered in the usual damage of small nicks and cuts from his rampage. Turning his hand over, Grimmjow noted he'd split his knuckles punching something at some point.

Kurosaki impatiently reached for his hand when Grimmjow remained silent. He snapped his hand down to his chest with a snarl and rolled backward into a crouch. Petulantly, Grimmjow hid his hands under his armpits despite the immediate sting the proximity of his own body heat gave the burns. Blood from his forehead rapidly started traveling down the side of his face with the new angle.

Glaring down Kurosaki for trying to touch him when he was pissed, Grimmjow noticed yet another addition to the list of stupid shit he'd have to deal with tonight.

Kurosaki demanded, "Let me see your hands, asshole!"

At the exact same time, Grimmjow bit out, "Where the fucks your coat, dipshit?!"

The shinigami crouched across from him, shivering in that open back piece of warfare like an absolute moron. No hat, gloves, or even a scarf to speak of, either. It was like he'd shoved his feet in his shoes and sprinted out the door. Coming after Grimmjow, maybe? That was even stupider.

Ignoring the raw scrape of pain on his hands, Grimmjow yanked off his jacket and shoved it in Kurosaki's face. "Does being this stupid burn all the energy in your brain?" He griped hotly, "Put that on."

Kurosaki stared at the offered leather jacket with a suddenly calculating look, still shaking at the cold. Then, he looked up the line of Grimmjow's arm, lingering on his split knuckles, to make eye contact. "Let me look at your hands, and I'll put it on."

Grimmjow's fist tightened on the leather, which he immediately paid for in a fresh burst of stinging pain. Kurosaki would willingly get frostbite to try to weasel his way into helping someone; Grimmjow knew that. The infuriating thing was that Grimmjow didn't want that to happen.

So, he got up and put some of that rage into movement. Stalking away from Kurosaki with the jacket still in hand, Grimmjow ducked through the hole into the fence into the well-lit street. Kurosaki scrambled after him the whole way, spluttering something or another. Grimmjow turned the second the shinigami had gotten through the fence and threw the jacket in his face with an unkind amount of force.

It almost knocked him on his ass, but Kurosaki caught himself at the last second, much to Grimmjow's disappointment. He tore the jacket from his face with a look of pure indignation. It shuttered almost instantly into blank surprise at the sight of Grimmjow holding his hands out for inspection.

"The lights better out here." Why was he explaining? Shut up! "Put on the fucking jacket!"

Without another word, Kurosaki did put on the fucking jacket. It sat a little looser on him, but it didn't fit Grimmjow that much better, honestly. The guy he'd beat for it had been a little bigger than himself. But, hey, a trophy was a trophy, and it did a damn good job of keeping the cold out. The cold that was now nipping through Grimmjow's sweater and raising bumps on his hieroless skin. It was fine. He was fine. And as soon as Kurosaki was done with fondling his hands, he'd go get warm.

Grimmjow expected that Kurosaki would roughly grab his hand, draw the injury up to his eye for inspection, and clap him on the shoulder to send him on his way. This was the pattern that he'd established during their spars. Something that Grimmjow had begrudgingly gotten used to and come to anticipate.

Something friendly but not gentle. Or, even, something rough to convey how pissed off Kurosaki was about whatever the fuck it was that Grimmjow had done. But, still, not gentle. They didn't do soft with each other. By some unspoken agreement or rule, they just didn't.

So, why was it that Grimmjow's breath hitched when Kurosaki gripped his wrist with a lightened, soft amount of care?

Kurosaki mistook his noise for a hiss of pain as he inspected, "Does it hurt that bad?"

"Yeah," Grimmjow lied instantly, poorly.

Transferring Grimmjow's other hand to be held carefully by just his cold fingertips, Kurosaki inspected the knuckles before flipping it over. He hummed a noise of sympathy at the burns. Grimmjow stood rooted to the spot, mind completely blue screening. He stared down the orange crown of hair in front of him with a building sense of bafflement, eyes almost crossed.

Kurosaki lifted his head with a frown. Grimmjow noted instantly, with a traitorous amount of relief, that the warm brown eyes he was used to had returned. The shinigami lifted a hand to, perhaps, take a closer look at the cut on Grimmjow's head that was currently dripping blood off his chin. Grimmjow felt like his heart might actually explode into visceral, meaty bits if that same touch was brought anywhere near his face. So, out of self-preservation, he immediately began to lean away with a warning curl of his mouth, jaw shielding his throat.

Nelliel was the only person allowed to touch his head. And that was only because he was permitted to massage her temples when her mask injury acted up enough to cause a migraine. It was mutually beneficial. Therefore, it was safe. This wasn't, especially with the copious amount of weird behavior Grimmjow had seen tonight.

"You're bleeding," Kurosaki whispered seriously as if he weren't aware.

Grimmjow fully displayed his teeth, "Head wounds bleed worse. I'm fine."

A thread of distress entered Kurosaki's voice, "Not your head, here." A hand daringly slid up Grimmjow's chest to rest on his right pectoral. The warm contact made his body almost lean into the touch before he got a hold of himself. Instead, he craned his neck down to get an eyeful of whatever Kurosaki was pointing out.

Well, fuck.

A relatively large shard of glass from something, probably that television, had speared through the threads of his sweater to lodge into his chest. A ring of red had soaked into the fabric around it, right where Kurosaki was resting his overly concerned fingers. As soon as Grimmjow laid eyes on it, his body decided now was the time to let him know it was there with a bite of hot pain.

"Oh."

"Yeah, oh," Kurosaki might've been trying for sarcastic, but it sounded too strained. In the spirit of the holidays and also the giant piece of glass in his chest, Grimmjow let it slide.

Grimmjow moved to pick at the fabric around the injury but quickly flinched back when his burnt fingertips hit rough material. He sighed, "Gonna have to pester the princess for a healing."

Kurosaki's face got more constipated, "She already went home with Chad. It's the holidays."

"So?"

"They're probably…busy."

Okay, human relationship bullshit. Grimmjow switched tactics, "Tessai, then, I guess."

Kurosaki outright cringed, "He's actually drunk, for once."

Grimmjow paused, "Ya know what? Good for that bastard. Yer old man?"

"I'd bet my swords he's just as drunk by now," Kurosaki stared with laser focus at the piece of glass, "Might have to take you to the hospital."

"I am not letting some random human touch me," Grimmjow said heatedly.

"Then what, you're just going to leave it stuck there until someone you know can take care of it?" Kurosaki asked with wide eyes as if that was somehow incredulous.

"Yes."

Kurosaki's jaw clicked shut, maybe from the force of Grimmjow's blatant honesty. He fell silent for a long moment, hand still plastered to the bloody spot on Grimmjow's chest, with the piece of glass rising between two of his fingers like a red, translucent flag.

"My apartment isn't too far from here," Kurosaki announced eventually, eyes not meeting his face, "I have some medical training? Enough to stitch you up until Orihime can do something, at least." There was an edge of nervousness to his voice. A fragile undertone that Grimmjow recognized as 'I fucked up, please let me fix it.'

It didn't mean Grimmjow was willing to completely let him off the hook, however. Especially not when he was in pain and unusually irritable about it. And blamed the person in front of him, more than a little bit.

So, he stuck his sharp nose in Kurosaki's face with a sneer. Then, he rumbled out, smooth as silk, "Fine. But you get to explain why you were actin' like such a prick earlier. And if I don't like your answer, I'm gonna deck ya like the damn halls one of Kisuke's fuckin' holiday songs won't shut up about."

Kurosaki nodded morosely in agreement like a man facing an executioner's block. He blinked at him, "That song is about decorating the halls, not punching them."

"…Ya gotta ruin the one tolerable one, huh?"

***

"I think hollow holes might be vestigial in arrancar."

Grimmjow was sprawled in the sand next to Nelliel. They'd just finished a spar, wearing him down enough that the buzz of energy in his limbs had dulled. Turning his head to stare hard at teal hair, Grimmjow was suddenly suspicious that she'd worn him down just enough to have the patience to listen. Even if it was the most batshit thing he'd ever heard.

Nelliel kept her eyes on the unchanging moon, "They're still there, but I don't think we're heartless anymore. They're just something leftover from everything we went through. To get our hearts back. Or echoes of them, at least."

Grimmjow couldn't help scoffing, "And what makes you say that?"

"A lot of things," She turned her head to look him dead in the eye, "When I got separated from my brothers when the quincy were here, why'd you choose to carry me around while I was still small and mostly useless?"

Grimmjow kept his voice neutral even as an uncomfortable itch traveled up his spine, "You could watch for the bastards while I slept. And you had no reason to kill me as long as we kept an eye out for your idiots."

"You know how to hide well enough to get enough sleep," Nelliel cut straight to the core of him too quickly, "You were lonely." It wasn't a question. It wasn't said unkindly either. But, it was poking around at something delicate that Grimmjow didn't want anyone to find.

He snatched his gaze towards the moon, "Hollows don't get lonely."

"I know," A hand brushed the sand off the skin above his mask, "Troubling, isn't it?"

Grimmjow remained silent, gaze fixed skyward.

"Do you want to know how I know?"

His eye slid toward her, silently relieved that she'd moved from him to herself, but still cautious. But, wasn't there a saying about cats and curiosity in the human world? Nelliel propped herself up on her fist to make better eye contact, moving her hand to rest on Grimmjow's crescent scar.

"Do you know how I felt when Nnoitra died?" She asked, fingers gently tracing the shape.

"Unsatisfied you didn't get to gut him yourself?" Grimmjow responded dryly. It was how he had felt when the asshole's reiatsu had flickered out. It had brought his To Kill list from a jaunty two names back down to one. Fucker.

"No," Nelliel's expression opened like a wound, "I felt sad."

Grimmjow didn't know what to do with this sudden vulnerability. He wanted to tell her that was stupid. That Nnoitra was a colossal prick that no one should miss. But, instead, all that he could get out was a bewildered, "Why?"

"It doesn't make sense, does it, Grimm?" Nelliel continued, almost too lightly, "I should hate him. I should be glad he's dead, and he can't hurt anyone I love anymore. Honestly, I don't even wish he was still alive. He was a threat that was rightly eliminated and, yet, all I feel is sadness." She'd paused to make sure she had his attention, "Isn't that the sort of complicated thing that only someone with a heart would feel?"

Grimmjow had no counterargument for that.

So, in that space of bone dust and darkness, Nelliel brought it to light that maybe they had hearts. Hastily grown, weedy things, perhaps. But, still theirs. And her example made Grimmjow decide to closely guard his own. He didn't claw his way up the evolutionary ladder and then some to get it bruised up. No more than it already was, anyway.

Because he decided that complicated sounded like a horrible feeling.

***

Turning that conversation over in his mind, Grimmjow determined that he was right. Complicated was goddamn terrible. And twice as stupid. Kurosaki was a terrible goddamn idiot, to be exact.

"Look, I'm sorry my keys are in my coat," Kurosaki told him from the first platform of the building's fire escape, "But, my window is open! We can get in that way."

Looking at the ladder off the ground he'd have to jump for, Grimmjow knew this was going to hurt. The mechanism that dropped the ladder was apparently frozen. There was no way around it between his hands, his shoulder, and the glass still protruding from his chest. He'd probably have to use one arm to keep the glass in place.

Agitated, he walked a circle on the ground below with his head turned a full ninety degrees upwards. If he was still listening to the smart part of his brain, he'd flip Kurosaki off and go take his chances with drunk Tessai. Or bitch until Kurosaki decided his family's clinic was a better idea. Which it was.

But, it had occurred to Grimmjow on the slightly tense walk over here that he'd never seen Kurosaki's apartment before.

Oh. The phrase was 'Curiosity killed the cat.'

As Grimmjow crouched through several false starts to a jump, he distantly figured that it might soon become very damn fitting. Kurosaki's mouth thinned into a high-strung twist as he watched Grimmjow try to snap through the hesitation of his survival instincts. He called down, "Come on, you held your own against me with only one arm. What's one stupid ladder?"

"I kicked your ass with one arm! And fuck you, I had a month to recover from that."

It was just as Kurosaki was starting to move back towards the ladder uncertainly that Grimmjow sprung upwards. He caught the lowest rung of the ladder with his left hand then let out a pained wheeze as the jerking momentum shook his shoulder down to the foundation. His collarbone became sharp and hot under his skin. The burns hurt just as bad, irritated by biting cold metal. So much so, Grimmjow automatically grabbed the next rung with his right hand to get the pressure off.

There was the distinct clink of glass hitting the concrete below. Grimmjow dangled a second longer at the sudden sensation of something hot flowing freely down his chilled sternum. Just fucking perfect.

Grimmjow's muscles burned just as sharply as his hands. He slowly pulled himself up high enough to get a foot in a rung. As he got closer, Kurosaki clearly couldn't take it anymore as hands balled into fists in the back of Grimmjow's sweater, hauling him the rest of the way over the railing. Grimmjow would deny the undignified caterwaul he'd made even with a sword to his throat.

The momentum of Kurosaki's kidnapping almost sent him entirely off-balance. He managed to keep standing, somehow, by slamming his back into the brick wall. He spat out acidly, "You bastard, I was fine!"

"Yeah, yeah," Kurosaki ignored him in favor of touching Grimmjow's chest again. "Hey, where's the piece of glass?"

"We had a falling out," Grimmjow couldn't resist, "as in it fell out of my body onto the ground."

Kurosaki lifted up the front of his sweater, completely missing good humor, and letting freezing air attack his bare stomach. There was a smear of blood, made shimmery by the streetlights, across his abdomen. Fresh rivulets of red darted out from under the rolled-up hem of the fabric. Kurosaki breathed out quietly, "Shit."

Grimmjow squirmed, "At least feel me up in your warm apartment, you fuckin' pervert."

Kurosaki, standing there with slightly bloody fingers and snow in his hair, flinched with the guilt of someone caught doing something he shouldn't. His brown eyes swung a hard right away from the planes of Grimmjow's stomach. He dropped the hem of Grimmjow's sweater as if it burned, wiping the blood off his hand hurriedly on his pants. No smart-ass retort, name-calling, or any of the myriad of ways they liked to get on each other's nerves.

Weird.

The shinigami shuffled over to the window that was literally a foot away from Grimmjow's elbow and opened it. Grimmjow immediately forgot his budding concern in favor of conveying with every muscle in his face how close he was to losing his mind. Kurosaki didn't catch it, busy as he was with ducking into the heated shelter. Grimmjow followed close behind, hoping he could bruise him with the force of his glare alone.

No dice on that, Kurosaki simply reached back for his elbow with that bewildering gentleness while closing the window. Grimmjow's glare shattered, but, thankfully, Kurosaki was too busy with leading him towards a bathroom to see it. Absently, Grimmjow noted that he was being led through a bedroom but didn't glean any details in that short moment.

It wasn't a huge bathroom. Bare white everything that was only broken up by the color of Kurosaki's personal items. His thing for red and black was reflected in the space pretty fucking obviously.

Kurosaki pulled Grimmjow's leather jacket off his own body, tossing it back into the other room. Before Grimmjow could protest its treatment, his hat was yanked off his head and sacrificed to the same void. Blue hair that had been tucked away drifted down into Grimmjow's eyes. Kurosaki pointed towards the toilet seat, "Go sit down while I look through my first aid kit, okay?"

He dropped onto the seat with a loud, irritated huff that Kurosaki rolled his eyes at. Grimmjow stuck his tongue out at him in place of flipping him off with burnt hands.

Up until this point, much like a toddler that didn't quite have object permanence, Grimmjow had entirely forgotten about the backless sweater. So, when Kurosaki turned to start rummaging through a bathroom cupboard, Grimmjow felt like he was being electrocuted for the second time that night. He could tell that Kurosaki had freckles across his shoulder blades in the better lighting of the bathroom. This was hell. Grimmjow felt sure of it now.

Obviously, the only response was to start taking off his sweater so he could get focus on how fucked his chest was rather than be caught staring. If he took a few seconds to fume in a sweater cave, then that was between him and the blood-soaked sweater.

Grimmjow finished tugging off the red-green remains and dropped it on the tile floor. The cut on his chest was about only an inch in length, just a little below his right collarbone. Although, with the glass lost to time, it was hard to say how deep it was. But, it hadn't slipped between any ribs. The bleeding, at least, seemed to be slowing.

There was the sound of something hitting the floor. Grimmjow looked up to see a red-faced Kurosaki swiping up a roll of medical tap off the ground. The shinigami hissed out in a strained tone, "Where's your shirt?"

Grimmjow pointed at his sweater resting in a sad, defeated lump on the tile.

"Why'd you take it off?"

He squinted, "You weren't fuckin' thinking of patching me up around the damn thing, were you?" Even Grimmjow knew that would be medically ill-advised.

"No! You know what, never mind," Kurosaki dumped his supplies on the bathroom counter to sort through. Pointedly turning his weapon of a back to Grimmjow, the fucker.

Grimmjow frowned, looking down. Maybe he thought the scars were ugly? Guilty he put the big one there? None of those seemed right since Grimmjow walked around half his chest out as an arrancar anyway.

"How bad is it?" Kurosaki asked, getting into Grimmjow's space just as suddenly as he'd turned on it.

He pulled his mind out of dumb thoughts, "Inch long laceration, one and a half-inch deep at most. Bleedin' is already slowing."

Kurosaki hummed, "Might be able to get away with liquid sutures instead of sewing you up." He put his burning hand on Grimmjow's bare chest, checking the edges of the wound for himself. "Yeah, let's try it. I can always break out the needle and thread if it doesn't hold." He pulled a little bottle of liquid off the counter to show Grimmjow. "Got this from the old goat. I need to pinch the edges of the wound together, slather this on, and hold it for a minute until it dries. Simple enough, yeah?"

"Sure," Grimmjow said slowly, dead certain this was going to be the longest minute of his afterlife.

Kurosaki stared down his chest like it was an enemy soldier. Well, it definitely was attached to a former enemy soldier. Grimmjow tilted his head at him, trying to gauge what stupid little shinigami thoughts were running through his head. Then, there was a quick sting of disinfectant that Kurosaki no doubt forgot to mention on purpose, knowing Grimmjow hated it.

Grimmjow was not prepared for Kurosaki to bend down right into his space when he started applying the suture. It left him with a closeup view of Kurosaki's back from directly over his shoulder. The hand pinching at his right pectoral was not helping matters—the suture applicator's cold brush provided just enough weird sensation for Grimmjow to focus.

Don't make things complicated, he told himself.

Okay, but what if I fucking did, dickhead? Said another part of himself, one that remembered being something sleek and hungry. Always hungry.

He still hungered. Not so much for other hollows; he'd reached the peak of evolution for his kind. What he craved now, more often than not, was experiences. Grimmjow used to think that was limited to a good fight. And it certainly scratched an itch, sure. But, he'd since experienced curls of satisfaction in other things, like hearing music for the first time. Or seeing his first forest. Trying who knows how many human foods and drinks. Yoruichi sometimes called him her 'fellow hedonist' when she had fun ideas full of potential for bad decisions.

The applicator left his skin, leaving behind just hands. He had an excellent view of the muscles in Kurosaki's back shifting as he worked. Grimmjow used all his willpower to keep himself totally still, wishing he could sit on his hands for good measure. They stayed like that for most of the minute, Grimmjow trying to remember to breathe evenly.

Grimmjow knew when his chances stood at near zero. Besides, it wasn't like Kurosaki was wearing this damn torture device for his benefit.

Kurosaki shifted on his feet, "So, uh, how long have you and Nel been a thing?"

That shattered Grimmjow's line of thought, "What?" It was a harsh question that came out in a surprised huff against Kurosaki's neck.

"I don't know, you were getting pretty cozy at the party, so I thought…"

"No."

"Really?"

"Yes, really! Fuck you!"

Kurosaki leaned back slightly, looking Grimmjow in the eye, "So, you're just friends?"

Grimmjow wrinkled his nose at the word, remaining petulantly silent.

"Huh. Guess so. You made your 'I'm too hollow to use that word' face," Kurosaki's voice sounded strangely relieved. With a heavy touch of embarrassment, for some reason. Grimmjow was too centered on the malice of being known to pay it any mind.

Grimmjow growled, "I'm going to bite you if you don't shut the fuck up." Mostly to cover up the fact that he was reeling from such an out of nowhere question. Because where the fuck had that come from?

Kurosaki waved a hand dismissively at him, pulling back his other hand to admire the dried stitches. Grimmjow poked at the strange substance once before Kurosaki smacked his hand away. A hitched breath escaped him as his burned hand protested.

"Sorry," Kurosaki said in a small voice, applying a pad of gauze and medical tape to Grimmjow's chest.

"Why? Not like you told me to fight trash that bit back."

The dumb shithead didn't look convinced. Always had to make everyone's issues his issues.

Grimmjow was still pissed, but, really, he'd done this damage to himself. Nelliel was going to laugh at him for a full week when she found out. Piece of shit just loved when his destructive tendencies backfired on him.

Chewing on his lower lip, Kurosaki retrieved a washcloth and ran it under the sink. Grabbing the uninjured heels of his hands, Kurosaki arranged them palm up on the edge of the counter. Grimmjow watched with his best disinterested expression as Kurosaki dragged the cool cloth over the scorched sections. The cloth's texture didn't feel the best, but the cooled water made up for it. Mostly, Kurosaki was interested in washing the dried blood off from his various cuts.

"What? Too good to hold my fucked up hands?" He asked, mostly to rile the shinigami up and get him out of whatever weird funk he was slipping into.

"I-" Kurosaki's head snapped up, "This is efficient!"

"Uh-huh," Grimmjow tilted his head back in a bored way that could mean anything, sending his line of sight off into the void of space.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, Mr. Jaegerjaquez, about not being slutty enough to hold your hand," Kurosaki drawled in a passive aggressive tone that spoke of trouble brewing, "Here, let me make it up to you."

Grimmjow wasn't sure what he expected to happen next. But, the wet slap of an ice-cold washcloth against his sternum was not high on the list. He stuttered out a gasp in a way that sounded too human to him. And his traitorous gigai broke out in gooseflesh.

"That's fucking cold!" Grimmjow said at an octave higher above normal.

"Sorry," Kurosaki said, faux innocently. Then, he switched his touch from clinical but careful to apparently trying to blister his old scar raw. Long lines of abrasive contact across his chest and abdomen attacking dried blood like it insulted him.

Most days, Grimmjow thought he was somewhat used to no longer being armored from head to tail, like back in his adjuchas days. Sensation was something he'd spent a fair amount of time getting used to after his mask getting broken. But, sometimes, things just took him by surprise.

Grimmjow didn't yowl. He didn't.

He sort of did.

Heart or not, if it truly existed, Grimmjow hadn't deluded himself into thinking that made him more human. And the noise that he'd just killed in his throat, sort of but not fast enough, was not anywhere close to that.

He forgot that he was in the gigai for a split second. Confused the burning on his hands for his claws coming out. In his own mind, Grimmjow just barely managed to stop himself from disemboweling Kurosaki by curling his fists into the material of the sweater at his waist rather than rip him to bloody, human ribbons.

Kurosaki stilled while Grimmjow slammed his eyes shut. Repeated the mantra 'Don't bite his throat out' until the urge faded.

Only when he cataloged that his claws hadn't popped through fabric did he remember the gigai.

"Hey, uh, you alright there, lion king?"

Grimmjow breathed out slowly through his nose. He said tightly, "Shut up. Hey, did any of your hobbies as a kid involve doing stupid shit like sticking your fingers in jaguar exhibits at the zoo?" The metaphor wasn't that subtle, but Grimmjow really didn't give a shit.

"No?"

He made a doubtful noise in the back of his throat. Opening his eyes, Grimmjow turned his head towards the very tiny bathroom window then back to Kurosaki.

Kurosaki frowned, "What?"

"Trying to figure out the fuckin' logistics of throwing your ass through a two-foot wide gap," Grimmjow flexed his fingers in the sweater. One piece of his brain was mad that he'd touched anything with his burns. Another part was having a meltdown because his fingers' unburnt backs were touching bare skin.

Apparently, that caught up to Kurosaki's brain when his hands moved. Which led to a step back that Grimmjow expected, that he'd already loosened his grip for. Letting his hands drop back into his lap, Grimmjow noted that none of the cuts had opened back up, at least.

Kurosaki rinsed out the washcloth in the sink again, wringing out the excess before wielding it like a weapon as he turned back to Grimmjow.

"Haven't you fuckin' tortured me enough tonight?" Grimmjow said morosely. He wasn't entirely talking about just the ice-cold washcloth of shock and despair.

Kurosaki raised an eyebrow, almost playfully, "You've still got blood all over your face and in your hair."

"Not an unusual look for me," Grimmjow attempted to deflect, using the back of his hand to feel around the tacky feeling of dried blood on the side of his face.

If he didn't have a wet washcloth in his hands, Grimmjow was sure that Kurosaki would be stubbornly crossing his arms. So, he heaved out his most resounding sigh of annoyance, closed his eyes, and scrunched up his entire face in anticipation. Braced himself by gritting his teeth for the same treatment as before.

His brain registered two things before making the same imploding noise like the television that had put him here. One, the washcloth was warm this time, which was a massive improvement. He might have even made some smart remark about it if, two, Kurosaki's other hand wasn't in his hair. Using that hand, Kurosaki gently tilted Grimmjow's now limp head to the side and ran the washcloth up the line of his jaw with the other.

Rounding the corner of Grimmjow's jaw to trace a path to his temple, Kurosaki breathed, "Wow, you actually do like having your hair touched."

Internally, Grimmjow was blaming Nelliel for this. Externally, he was leaning into Kurosaki's hand when the edge of a nail hit his scalp. "I don't think I've ever seen you with your hair down." The washcloth rubbed where blood had clotted the short hair near his temple for a bit before swiping over his entire head to get his hair damp. "It's weird." Kurosaki must've dropped the washcloth judging by the wet slop that hit the tile. A hand returned to swipe his hair back into some semblance of how he usually wore it. It wouldn't hold long without product.

"What are you doing?" Grimmjow mumbled, a little delirious at the attention he was receiving.

"Checking to make sure I didn't pick up the wrong stray," Kurosaki chuckled, sounding immensely pleased with himself.

Which was nice. This was nice. But, Grimmjow still had some unanswered fucking questions. And one demand.

So, Grimmjow stood up, pulling his head well out of reach. "I want to know why you were acting like an asshole," he said with an edge of steel that left no room for argument, "And a shirt. Your apartment is fucking freezing."

Kurosaki stared up at him a long moment before using the hem of his jeans to help himself up. His hand lingered oddly, "That's fair. Go relax. I'll go find you something to wear."

Which was how Grimmjow ended up in the living room, seated on the couch, while it sounded like a war was happening in Kurosaki's room. Numerous slamming of drawers, pieces of clothing flying past the open door, and general growls of frustration. What was he looking for?

Grimmjow let his eyes wander around the room. Kurosaki was reasonably neat for a guy who lived by himself. Yet, Grimmjow suspected that was because he still lived in the same town as his family, who probably visited regularly. The most significant visible mess seemed to be limited to the coffee table in front of him, littered with books and loose paper. College shit, maybe?

There was a noise of triumph followed by Kurosaki emerging from his room with his prize. Another sweater that he held up for Grimmjow's inspection, "Found it."

Grimmjow took the sweater from him with a sneaking suspicion forming. It was dark blue in color, and one of the knit sleeves was fraying at the wrist. Familiarity struck fast. He groused, "Hey, this is-"

"Yours?"

There was a note of something to Kurosaki's voice that drew his full attention. Something soft and low in a tone that he'd never heard before. His heart caught in his throat when Grimmjow lifted his gaze to find Kurosaki sliding into his space. Grimmjow went exceedingly still as knees carefully bracketed his thighs, hands dug into the back of the couch, and Kurosaki's intense stare bore down on him. Not quite touching him anywhere. Purposefully arranged that Grimmjow absolutely could throw him off. But, there was a stain of embarrassment on Kurosaki's face. Grimmjow was too preoccupied with staring at to pursue that line of thought any further.

"Hey, do you remember the first Christmas gift I got you? A few years back?" Kurosaki blurt out.

Grimmjow wasn't sure where this was going. Hell, he wasn't even sure he was still in the living world rather than experiencing a wild hallucination. But it probably wouldn't hurt to play along for a bit. He swallowed once, "Socks with cats on them?"

"Do you remember what you got me?"

"A knife," Grimmjow answered instantly, still lost.

"A knife that you made out of solidified reishi from Hueco Mundo," Kurosaki emphasized, "Invisible to most eyes and good for killing hollows if 'you can't get out of your shitty human body fast enough.'"

"Yeah, and?" It was a practical thing to have, in Grimmjow's opinion. The fact that most humans just walked around unarmed continued to baffle him.

Kurosaki's face twisted with regret, "I didn't even buy those socks. They were just something I had that someone else had given me. I think they even might've been Halloween themed because of the black cats." He met Grimmjow's eyes, "Worse, you got so fricking excited about them after handing me something you clearly put thought into."

Grimmjow didn't quite get it. Giving someone else something you didn't want but they would enjoy didn't seem like a bad thing. Unless he thought that Grimmjow would hate them? "Were you trying to pick a fight?" He asked.

"No!" Kurosaki huffed out a sigh, "I'm glad you liked the socks, asshole. It just made me realize that not many people have done you a good turn just because they can."

Grimmjow rolled his left shoulder slowly, "You do remember Nnoitra trying to off me, yeah? That's about in line with my general fuckin' expectations."

"Yeah, I figured. I hated that," Kurosaki dropped a warm hand onto the raised ridge of the scar, running a thumb over it. "It's why I got the others in on bribing you to hang out with me sometimes. Knew you'd do it if you thought you were pulling one over on me."

A feeling that was one part indignant and two parts impressed rose in Grimmjow's chest. Manipulation wasn't really a trait he'd counted on being in Kurosaki's arsenal, but, of course, he'd only use it to try to be nice to someone. Nevertheless, he warned, "If you were fuckin' pitying-"

Kurosaki snorted, "If you're looking for it, go elsewhere." Grimmjow settled a bit at that. "You know, Grimmjow, sometimes people are just nice to each other because they like them."

Grimmjow processed that before stubbornly insisting, "Well, maybe I like the socks even more now." It had felt like the safe thing to say before he said it. But now, the weight of implications sat heavily on his tongue.

Kurosaki's whole face lit up, "Yeah?"

Grimmjow swallowed before nodding once, very slightly. Kurosaki could get this one concession out of him. Just this once. If he bragged about it, Grimmjow reserved the right to gut him for it.

"I'm sorry about the way I acted at the party. I was," Kurosaki's voice dropped to an embarrassed grumble, "jealous."

Envy was something that Grimmjow was familiar with. He'd spent enough time gunning for ranks he never got the opportunity to reach to understand it. Or coveting the comparative safety that shinigami and humans took for granted in their respective worlds. But, Kurosaki didn't really take stuff for granted with how fiercely he protected shit. And always seemed to have a knack for finding just what he needed. So, the word that immediately flew out of Grimmjow's mouth was a confused, "Why?"

Kurosaki's weight dropped into his lap as he clasped Grimmjow's face with his hands. Grimmjow sucked in a shocked breath through his nose as his heartbeat kicked itself into overdrive. The look on Kurosaki's face was frustrated but fond. Mostly frustrated. He enunciated out slowly, "Because I'm in love with you, you dense, dense bastard."

Entire worlds might've been born and died in the time that it took for those words to stop ringing in Grimmjow's ears. His gigai's skin was crawling with weird, warm tingling. His face felt like it was burning, but he couldn't tell if it was his own reaction with Kurosaki's thumbs sweeping across his cheekbones.

Grimmjow desperately asked the universe to punch him in the face so he could decide if this was reality or not.

Kurosaki didn't seem bothered by his ongoing silence. He just continued with a wry look, "I know. It was a big shock to me too, at first." He removed one hand to tug a finger into the high collar of his sweater, "Also, I didn't actually lose a bet."

Hearing a phrase denying a loss coming from Kurosaki seemed to be the sense of normalcy that Grimmjow's brain needed for a hard reset. Still, that didn't mean he managed to say anything amazingly fucking eloquent. He just parroted back, "You didn't?"

"Yoruichi and Orihime have been…wing-manning? Probably not the word for it. Mostly, I think they're invested in the bet they have going on how dense you are. With Orihime betting that you're pretending for some reason. Which she's definitely losing, probably. But, the point is the, uh, the backless sweater was their idea. The bet was a cover." Kurosaki was starting to ramble, seeming to crack at the seams a bit under Grimmjow's stare. He distantly remembered Nelliel's advice that he should try to blink more often.

In reality, Grimmjow's head was spinning like a fucking top trying to process everything that had just been dumped into his lap. Words were just not happening anytime soon. But, the quieter he was, the more Kurosaki was going to get worked up. Because, really, how else would someone react after bleeding their goddamn heart out?

Planting his head in the crook of Kurosaki's neck felt like it would be okay until he sorted himself out. So, Grimmjow did, pressing the bridge of his nose right on Kurosaki's pulse just to feel if his heartbeat was racing. Just to test it, he loosely threw an arm around Kurosaki's lower back, feeling skin burn against his bare arm, and the tempo he'd pressed up against increased.

"Grimmjow…?"

He smelled like hot chocolate, tea tree oil, and a thousand other good things Grimmjow didn't think he was ever meant to have. But that hadn't stopped him from wanting. Nothing ever stopped him from wanting. He let out a long sigh from his nose that felt like it rose out of his very bones and wrapped his other arm around Kurosaki's waist.

For a long moment, they stayed like that.

"This caught you that off guard, huh?" Kurosaki eventually asked. He didn't even sound smug about it, just thoughtful—borderline considerate.

"Not to sound like a broken fuckin' record, Kurosaki, but why?" Grimmjow asked the hollow of his throat.

There was a contemplative hum that buzzed against Grimmjow's face as Kurosaki assembled his brain cells to form thoughts.

"You know how you sort of half-ass flirt with me, then immediately back off? You've done it at least twice tonight." Grimmjow rumbled a little at that until Kurosaki started plowing a questing hand into the hair on the back of his head. "I used to think it was you messing with me. To make fights more fun? I don't know. All I knew was a part of me was pissed that it wasn't real. But then it struck me that you really, really hate mind games like that. Which only left me with the option I decided I wanted. That it was all coming from someplace genuine." Grimmjow's body was currently liquid. Kurosaki obliviously held the mouthing off pass as far as he was concerned. "It was like you were doing what you thought you could get away with while not expecting anything."

Well, hammer missed the nail and hit the fuckin' thumb.

Still, even if he hadn't quite found his ego, Grimmjow did manage to pick up his snark and dust it off. Leaning back to look Kurosaki in the eye, he muttered a little sleepily, "So, you thought a sweater might've gotten me to show my hand somehow?"

"Maybe," Kurosaki narrowed his eyes, "Until it became obvious that you're so dense, you might as well have your own center of gravity."

"Yeah, because your earlier messages weren't mixed at all," Grimmjow drawled sarcastically.

Kurosaki winced.

Grimmjow's eyes trailed off down to the right, and, oh, there it was, his ego. He held up the stolen sweater in eyesight, "Wearing this one would've been a lot fuckin' harder to misread."

Kurosaki gave the sweater the look of a man who'd just aged a thousand years, "That's actually why I stole it. That was my original plan. Then, Yoruichi started convincing me about this one and." He cut himself off with a frustrated noise.

Grimmjow gave the old blue sweater a curious sniff, "Were you having dress rehearsals in your apartment? Still smells like you." He slid his eyes towards Kurosaki to watch his entire face turn red, right down to the edge of his high collar. Grimmjow broke out into a shit-eating grin.

The sweater was snatched out of his hand. The fabric aggressively rolled up to the collar and shoved over Grimmjow's laughing head as Kurosaki's embarrassment reached critical mass. But, with Grimmjow's arms still wrapped behind him, it just left it hanging around his neck like a cowled scarf. Then, hands were caressing his face again.

And Kurosaki was kissing him.

His lips were warm and a little chapped. He tasted like hot chocolate from the party. It set off a trail of sparks across Grimmjow's skin from his face to the tips of his toes. Fuck if he had any idea what he was doing, but Grimmjow did his best to figure it out. It was mostly Kurosaki leading, to be fair. But, when Grimmjow bit down gently on his lower lip with the tips of his fangs and dragged, Kurosaki made a low noise in the back of his throat.

It was all going really well until Kurosaki dragged his fingers behind Grimmjow's ears.

Caught off guard for the second time that night, Grimmjow's entire body shook violently with the force of the rumble that rose out of his chest. Kurosaki inhaled a sharp gasp of surprise against his face. One hand dropped between Grimmjow's shoulder blades as if to check the source more closely. And as much as Grimmjow wanted to swallow it down, the round of purring apparently just wanted to keep going. Shit, he hated this.

With just their foreheads touching, Kurosaki asked, "Grimmjow, you can purr?"

Wow, so he'd completely missed that part of the earlier incident? Not that that was doing his pride any favors right now. He said, "Don't you dare fuckin' laugh, Kurosaki, or…" His mind stuttered on to find a threat that didn't focus too heavily on visceral maiming. But, a lot of his best threats did focus on, surprise, visceral maiming.

"Why would I laugh at a noise you make when you're happy?" Then, as if that question hadn't dug its claws into Grimmjow's diaphragm, he added, "Also, would you just give it up and call me Ichigo already?"

"Huh?"

"One time, I said you could just call me Ichigo, and you told me you'd only do that if I kissed you on the mouth. Then, you swung Pantera at me before I had a chance to respond," Kurosaki smirked, "Anyway, condition met, asshole."

Kur-Ichigo had dumped everything he'd pined for into his lap, and all he wanted in return was for Grimmjow to use his first name? He was hopeless. Just too good for his own good, really.

"Ichigo."

When Grimmjow caught his lips with his own and mouthed Shut up against them, Ichigo broke the kiss to start laughing so hard that he snorted a little. His orange head dropped into the crook of Grimmjow's neck, shoulders shaking as he tried to catch his breath.

Grimmjow couldn't help feeling more than a little pleased with himself.

And considerably goddamn lucky.

***

The following day, mouth twisted up with amusement, Nel watched Orihime scold Grimm something fierce as she healed him up. But, the healer must've forgiven him somewhat for the perceived 'leading Ichigo on' because she fixed up the damaged sweater as well. Grimm just looked thoroughly embarrassed by the whole thing, refusing to look anyone in the eye.

Ichigo sat at the table with Nel, looking somewhere between guilty and entertained. An exploding TV was something that only Grimm would manage to cause problems with, in all honesty. Not exactly what she'd predicted happening, but well within expectation.

Either way, Nel had won her bet against both of the other women.

Nel held her hand over her shoulder for Yoruichi to slide an expensive chocolate bar into, the kind with creamy sea-salted caramel filling. Ichigo watched the exchange, eyes narrowing suspiciously.

Nel tapped her prize against her cheek, "What? Clearly, you two needed just a little bit of a push."