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Nothingness is a hollow's only companion yet the space next to Grimmjow is occupied by a man who once promised him more than he could ever have. Even years later, the words still ring in his ears, a promise to fight, fight, fight, again and again until one of them bleeds their last.
Only a fool would believe that these words are eternal. Forever isn't possible. Not for humans, not for shinigami, and especially not for hollows.
If anything, transience is the only thing Grimmjow knows. His shift up the hollow evolutionary rung, his rank amongst Aizen's army, his fracción. All temporary. Even the seemingly still sands of Hueco Mundo, as vast and repetitive they may be, are constantly changing.
Until now, it's been a silent and mutual understanding to never speak of it, so it surprises Grimmjow when Kurosaki, voice strung with reluctance says, "How long do you think we can keep this up for?"
Grimmjow's attention snaps from the stars above to where Kurosaki is sitting with his knees drawn to his chest. He looks young like this, not as young as when they first met, but the tired eyes belonging to someone who once fought wars far beyond his youth isn't so obvious. There's a thought behind Kurosaki's distant expression, almost unreadable if it weren't for where Kurosaki's focus is zeroed in on.
Resting several feet away, their swords pierce the soft earth, and Kurosaki's gaze lingers on them as if the blades will run away. Grimmjow can't say much about a shinigami's zanpakuto but he knows Pantera will stay put.
It will as long as they're both breathing. It will when Kurosaki is long gone. It will and so will Grimmjow.
"Getting tired of me already?" Grimmjow tries for snarkiness but the bitterness evidently bleeds through.
"Course not. I just wanted to know if we are on the same page." Kurosaki finally looks at him, expression unchanging.
"What? You think I'd still want to fight you when you're old and senile?" Grimmjow responds incredulously, reclining back onto his elbows and tipping his head back as a late autumn breeze sweeps against his sweaty, battle-worn body. Soon winter will hit town and the seasons will cycle through. Another week, another month, another year closer to the now spoken inevitable.
"With the life I've had, I'd be lucky to grow old." Kurosaki's laugh is humourless. "But that's not the point. It's just… this will eventually have to end."
And Grimmjow knows this. As long as they're equals, Grimmjow will draw his sword. As long as they exist within the same plane, Kurosaki will oblige.
If Kurosaki offers him a lifetime of fights, Grimmjow will gladly take them but he's by no means cruel enough to fight someone who is going to break if he coughs the wrong way. Not with Kurosaki at least, he's not afraid to put down any other aged shinigami if needed, just not Kurosaki. Never him. That's not who they are, not how they gravitate towards each other. It'll no longer be satisfying, it'll no longer be what Kurosaki had once promised him. They're men of their word in this regard and Grimmjow doesn't want their last battle to be anything but Kurosaki's prime and he knows Kurosaki feels the same.
Grimmjow doesn't want there to be a last battle at all. He can't admit it. Grimmjow is not that type of person but Kurosaki is brave enough to wear his heart on his sleeve for the both of them. "I don't want it to end like this."
"Your mortality ain't something I can help you with," he informs.
"That's not what I meant," he huffs, warm breath condensing in the cold, "I don't want us to end like this, with our swords to each other's throats and nothing else between us."
Sitting back up, Grimmjow scoffs, "I ain't got anything to offer, find a friend elsewhere."
It's true. Grimmjow doesn't want a friend, can't offer it even if he wants because he only wants Kurosaki. Wants Kurosaki in more ways than Grimmjow is allowed to ever have. Long ago, he made peace with how they are now, he's content about it. Wanting is what a hollow does best but he knows he can't have everything, especially not someone like Kurosaki Ichigo.
That contentment dissolves into an awful gnawing feeling with what Kurosaki says next.
"Not what I meant either, dipshit." Kurosaki scrubs an irritated hand through his hair. The twitch of his shoulders is not a shiver from the cold but a nervous little tick Grimmjow has come to learn. So is the steady breath Kurosaki reels in. "Here, I have something for you."
A man as no-bullshit and straight to the point as Kurosaki often is, he's awfully hesitant as he reaches into the folds of his uniform. It takes far longer than it should but Kurosaki eventually procures a small object which he tosses towards Grimmjow who catches it with ease.
Within Grimmjow's palm is a hefty little polished wooden box with brass hinges and a clasp keeping its lid shut. He rotates the thing to examine it, the shine of the wood glints in the moonlight and when he examines Kurosaki too, his eyes reflect the same: warm, walnut brown, welcoming and holding their own secrets.
Kurosaki doesn't say much but a tilt of his head urges Grimmjow to open the box. With a flip of his thumb, the clasp snaps up and the lid follows soon after another quick glance towards Kurosaki who is now watching him intently.
Gold silk lines the box's interior. It looks expensive and likely would have been if it was any more than a few scraps of fabric. Embedded within the cushioned silk is something far more priceless though. A simple black band.
Grimmjow can only stare at the ring in open apprehension. He doesn't look at Kurosaki, can't look at Kurosaki.
"It's a ring." Kurosaki is the first to break the silence, voice nearly inaudible if it weren't for the fact that Grimmjow is hyper-focused on him. Always has been when it comes to Kurosaki. Except right now, Grimmjow is focused on everything Kurosaki is. Human.
Grimmjow's been human, he knows what something like this means.
"I know what a ring is," Grimmjow snarls, of course he does. It's stupid that Kurosaki even needs to explain so he hits him with, "Normally you gotta be dating someone before you propose to them."
"I'm not proposing to you!" Kurosaki squawks, cheeks now turning a satisfying red. "It's just something I've been wanting to give you."
Wanting. Kurosaki's thought about this in the past; been hesitant about it like he has anything to really be scared of. What has prompted him to finally do so raises too many questions in Grimmjow.
"You give all your friends rings?"
"Thought we weren't friends," Kurosaki snipes back, sounding far too fond to really mean anything. If anything Kurosaki's dumb enough to count something like this as a win, as some sort of acknowledgment from Grimmjow that they're not as awful to each other the way they once were as enemies. At the very least, Grimmjow can agree to that. "But no I don't, this wouldn't be something I would even want to give them. Besides, I don't think they'd understand something like this the way you would."
Grimmjow narrows his eyes. He's not sure what that means, he has little use for a ring yet alone any material possessions, especially not with the life he lives.
He cautiously prods at the ring with the tip of his finger, half-expecting some sort of shinigami-produced trap to trigger. He's been dragged into Kisuke's ploys enough, and Kurosaki's been an unwilling witness, victim or accessory to many of them too. No one can fault Grimmjow for being too careful, he knows when to be cautious when given something unexpected, he wouldn't have survived this long if he hadn't.
When nothing happens, he gives it another poke and the ring tips back, silver moonlight catching against the black metal. He's seen something like this before, felt it too. When he picks it up between thumb and forefinger, he recognizes what it is.
The metal itself is cold to the touch but there are faint waves of warmth pulsing from it. Unmistakably, it's spiritual energy that weakly mirrors that of the gifter himself.
"It feels like you," Grimmjow comments more to himself than Kurosaki. When he finally looks at Kurosaki, the man is staring right back at him, feelings too fucking open like he isn't afraid that Grimmjow can just shatter it with a set of carefully measured words.
"Yeah…"
"Why the fuck does it feel like you?" Grimmjow asks but he thinks he knows. He feels it in his hand, in Kurosaki, in Zangetsu. His eyes fall onto the sword skewered into the earth, face twisting into half-horror and half-disgust. "You desecrated your sword?"
"What? No! Why the hell would I ever do that?" Kurosaki exclaims, panicked and offended. "It was just a broken link of the chain that hung off the pommel of my old bankai. I found it in the sand after our fight in Las Noches, so if anything, you're kinda responsible for breaking it."
Grimmjow wants to beam from the satisfaction at those words but remembering his sore loss from that fight abates that feeling immediately. It feels a little like a slap in the face that Kurosaki is even offering something like this to him.
"And you kept it?"
"Thought I could fix it one day but turns out a broken bankai isn't an easy thing to fix, even if it's something as simple as a chain link," he gestures towards Zangetsu whose appearance has drastically changed between two wars. "So I had this piece reforged into something… I guess, useful?"
Grimmjow's heard sparse details here or there about how Tensa Zangetsu had been reforged. It doesn't matter much to him as long as Kurosaki's strength is at least on par with what it used to be. Fortunately for Grimmjow, the guy's far stronger than he once was, this broken piece of his zanpakuto should mean nothing to a shinigami like Kurosaki Ichigo. It's useless now, meant to be discarded and forgotten yet Kurosaki took it upon himself to shape it anew.
Now he's giving it to Grimmjow.
"So you're giving me scrap metal," he says, intending to sound off-put.
Kurosaki deflates, shoulders dropping from usual bravado to defeat. He looks so fucking hurt, Grimmjow feels his own stomach drop and he hates it. He's supposed to revel in Kurosaki's upset but he can't. Hasn't been able to for a long time. He's not sure when such a turn has happened within him.
"You don't have to wear it or anything," Kurosaki says with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Do whatever you want with it if scrap metal's how you see it."
And Grimmjow doesn't. To an arrancar like him, the sentiment means so much more than just a piece of trash. A broken zanpakuto means a broken piece of one's self, one's power — a risk of being vulnerable and weak. Offering something like this to someone else means offering a part of one's self, one's trust and loyalty. It's a promise of forever in the most physical, visceral way possible. Perhaps this is what Kurosaki meant when he said this would be something Grimmjow understands. It's not a gift intended for a human or a shinigami. It's not even for any other arrancar in Kurosaki's life. It's all for Grimmjow.
And he understands what it means for a human too. A broken zanpakuto holds little weight but a ring means so much more. A promise so unlike the one Kurosaki once spoke that Grimmjow finds it difficult to believe him.
The weight is there in his hand physically and speaking more than words could ever. This trusting, sentimental bastard sure knows how to twist Grimmjow into a tight spot and he doesn't know what to say in response.
Kurosaki is looking at him, mouth agape like he wants to spill that big dumb heart of his in a tumble of words if Grimmjow doesn't speak first.
"I know what it means," Grimmjow says slowly, like the words in his mouth are dead weight. "You're such a sentimental fuck, you know that?"
Kurosaki is about to speak but violently snaps his mouth shut as Grimmjow slides the ring onto his left middle finger like a silent acceptance to take Kurosaki's heart into his own hands. Fuck, Grimmjow would protect it with his fucking life and it's unsettling how he doesn't know how to express so beyond slipping this little piece of jewelry onto his finger.
The dark band wrapped around his finger is a foreign sight and Kurosaki is staring at his finger like he's never seen it before.
Grimmjow doesn't jerk away as Kurosaki, expression awestruck, skims his fingers across the back of Grimmjow's hand like it'll tell him something he doesn't already know. The black ring shines strangely bright in the dim moonlight, radiant in its own way, reminiscent of its original source of gold reiatsu emitting from the man who brightens everything he touches.
Which now includes Grimmjow.
"Could've just said all that shit outright y'know, didn't need a flashy ring to show for it."
"You would have called bullshit if I tried."
"You're fucking right, I would have. So here's some advice, Kurosaki," Grimmjow flexes his hand prompting Kurosaki to quickly withdraw. He doesn't let him get too far though, with two fistfuls of Kurosaki's uniform as leverage, Grimmjow hauls him forwards and crashes their lips together.
Kurosaki's surprise only lasts as long as the startled sound he makes and he's kissing Grimmjow back, hands gripping fabric of his own like Grimmjow's going to run away. He won't though, not now that Grimmjow has Kurosaki within reach and so much more.
They barely part more than a few inches, and within this distance, Grimmjow can feel Kurosaki's relieved exhale against his own lips.
"That's what I would have done," Grimmjow informs him.
Kurosaki's gaze flickers down to Grimmjow's lips, then wide brown eyes are staring right at him in confusion, "Why hadn't you? Until now, I mean."
"Didn't know you wanted me."
"I do. What about you?"
"Huh?"
"Do you want me?" His gaze is unwavering, hopeful.
"Yeah," Grimmjow murmurs, nearly pressing the word against Kurosaki's lips. "I want all of you, not just this damn ring."
The hands wrinkling his jacket fall lax. One moves to tangle in Grimmjow's hair, another to rest on his nape. The distance between them closes with a chaste kiss.
Grimmjow is the first to speak after a long moment, "Making sure we're on the same page?"
"Yeah."