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Winter holidays at the Kurosaki household were typically a subdued affair. They involved much movie-marathoning, and embarrassing wardrobes that Ichigo was glad that he didn’t have to be seen in public around.
The twins liked to alternate between the ugliest Christmas sweaters known to man, and cosplays of the strangest holiday movie characters they could find. A few years ago Karin had dressed as John McClane一complete with fake blood on her feet that she’d ended up tracking all over their carpet一and Yuzu had worn a scarily accurate Grinch costume which had left Ichigo feeling uncomfortable all night. He’d never been a fan of the Grinch, particularly the live-action version. Something about Jim Carrey’s face in all the makeup and prosthetics, paired with his weird, spindly and furry fingers, made him uneasy.
Isshin wasn’t much better; their loving father liked to dress himself as Santa, and stay as faithful to the role as he could. Ichigo thought it was just because he liked to nag his only son with the excuse of “staying in character, Ichigo, where’s your holiday spirit?”
This year wasn’t all that different, save for a couple key details.
The first, and probably the most significant, would be that Karakura was suffering from one of the worst blizzards it had experienced in the past twenty-odd years. All the news channels had been going over their predictions for weeks in advance, until the real thing had arrived and proceeded to steadily snow everyone in for the foreseeable future. It hadn’t really affected any of their plans, seeing as their plans consisted of nothing but stuffing themselves with Yuzu’s cooking, and binging the Godzilla films in a food coma, but still. Knowing that he’d be stuck in the house for the next few days put a damper on Ichigo’s mood, and from the looks of his family, they felt the same.
The second detail一probably brought on by the first if he was being honest一was that Isshin had come down with a nasty cold three days ago, and resolved to make it everyone’s problem. Currently, he was sitting on their battered old armchair, bundled in the red and white coat of his Santa costume, and letting out miserable sniffs that told everyone just how much snot was sitting inside of his nostrils.
Karin and Yuzu were seated on the couch, wearing twin sweaters that had the butchered face of what Ichigo suspected was supposed to be an elf, along with the caption: “He sees you when you’re sleeping,” on them. They were curled up underneath their traditional Holiday Binge Blanket, which was a hideous shade of yellow, and sipping dual mugs of hot chocolate.
Ichigo eyed their collection of Godzilla films, which had earned their own cabinet over the years due to the sheer number of movies they’d acquired. “Which one do you guys want to start with?” he asked over his shoulder.
“Mechagodzilla,” Karin said without hesitation, and took a loud slurp of her hot chocolate.
Ichigo sighed just as Yuzu said, “But then we’ll be up all night.”
She was right. The first film with Mechagodzilla in it was one of the earlier ones, and if Ichigo was being honest with himself, he didn’t want to stay up past one or two tonight. Their heating had gone faulty yesterday, and his bed was more enticing than a thin blanket and the couch.
“Isn’t that the point of a binge?” Karin said.
“What about Biollante?” Yuzu asked.
“That’s just Little Shop of Horrors on steroids,” Ichigo said.
“No it’s not, Ichi-nii. It’s completely different.” Yuzu sounded exasperated, but it didn’t stop him from hardly sparing Biollante’s dvd a glance before moving on. He wasn’t in the mood for a giant plant monster from outer space, and judging by the silence in the room, no one else was either.
“Well, what about the second Mechagodzilla?” Karin said.
“Daddy doesn’t think he can make it through more than two movies tonight,” Isshin complained from the armchair, congested and miserable sounding. He let out another obnoxiously loud sniff that stuttered when the snot gurgled back up his nose.
No one acknowledged him, all three of the siblings in silent agreement to ignore their father while they could. Instead, Ichigo just kept looking at the spines of the dvd cases like one of them could reveal the solution to the disagreement amongst the family. He didn’t feel like a giant reptilian robot, and nor was he interested in watching the love child of Audrey Two and a crocodile.
He frowned, considering. “What about SpaceGodzilla?”
There was a pause that followed his words一a promising sign within the Kurosaki household. It meant that his suggestion was being at least considered. He heard Isshin swallow, loud and vaguely phlegm-filled, as if he were going to speak. Karin got there first.
“Sounds good to me,” she said.
Yuzu was quick to back her up. “I like SpaceGodzilla.”
“Guess we have a winner then.” Ichigo pulled Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla一a very creative title一from its place on the shelf, and stood to meander over to the dvd player, ignoring the dejected look Isshin was giving all three of them. Once he slid the disk in, he rose once again, cracking his back in a stretch. “Feel free to start it. I’m going to get some tea.”
“Kay,” Karin said, already reaching for the remote, which had been laying sad and alone on the other side of the couch.
***
Far enough into the movie that SpaceGodzilla had kidnapped Godzilla’s son一something that never failed to weird Ichigo out一the Kurosaki running commentary had arrived in full force.
“I like his shoulder pads,” Yuzu was saying. “They’re very eighties.”
Ichigo could only assume she meant the giant, glowing crystals that stuck out of SpaceGodzilla’s shoulders like a pair of multi-faceted Christmas trees. He gave her an incredulous look from the other side of the couch. “This came out in the nineties.”
She sniffed. “Fashion is forever, Ichi-nii.”
“They’re crystals.”
“They’re a statement piece.”
“What I don’t get,” Karin interjected, tossing a handful of the popcorn they’d microwaved fifteen minutes ago into her mouth, “is why his son looks so cute. He’s the son of the King of the Monsters and he looks like off-brand Charmander.”
“A bipedal Bulbasaur maybe?” Yuzu asked.
“My darling children, can we watch the movie?” Isshin said through the veil of his congested misery.
“Wouldn’t he be Frigibax?” Ichigo pointed out, ignoring their father completely. He jabbed a finger at where said off-brand Charmander was currently being shoved in a crystal prison. “The Baxcalibur line is based on Godzilla, after all一”
Ichigo’s jaw snapped shut when a loud bang rang through the house. Karin yelped, and her resulting flinch sent half the popcorn flying everywhere. Yuzu picked some up off their blanket and popped it in her mouth.
The four of them sat in silence for a moment, and when Ichigo opened his mouth to say… something, he wasn’t sure what, another bang cut him off. It sounded distinctly like knuckles on wood, and when it continued in a pattern that could only be construed as angry knocking, his brain finally managed to work out that it was someone banging on their door. He turned to look in the direction of their foyer, like his annoyance alone could shut up whoever was punching a hole in the front door.
Who the hell would be out in such a shitty blizzard anyway?
Isshin seemed to have a similar train of thought. “Ichigo,” he said, “would you please go see what maniacal fool is trying to beat our door down at midnight?”
“Why me?”
“Because I’m so woefully ill, of course.” He let out a particularly disgusting sniff, followed by a phlegm-clearing swallow, as if to emphasize his point. “And because I would never send either of my darling girls to discover a potential murderer at our doorstep.”
Ichigo gave him a flat look that he hoped conveyed how unimpressed he was with that answer, but stood regardless. “If I get stabbed, it’s Dad’s fault.”
“Noted,” Karin said, chewing loudly on her popcorn.
The knocking was reaching a rather violent crescendo by the time Ichigo made it to the foyer, and he was so hellbent on giving whatever murderous dumbass it was standing on their porch a piece of his mind, he didn’t fully realize who it was when he opened the door. “What the fuck is your problem一 Grimmjow?”
He blinked, feeling completely off kilter, and incapable of closing his mouth in the face of the shuddering Arrancar on his doorstep.
Grimmjow’s fist was still cocked back, frozen mid-knock and giving the impression he was ready to punch Ichigo in the face. His fingers were clenched about as tight as seemed possible, and his other hand was jammed deep into one of the pockets of his jumpsuit. Broad shoulders were drawn together in a hunch that screamed “I’m freezing my balls off,” and if that didn’t do it, the incessant shivering would have. He looked miserable: blue hair bedraggled, laden with slowly melting snow, and even bluer eyes narrowed into a scowl of displeasure. He was shaking like a leaf in the wind and his skin was alarmingly pale, with his lips almost devoid of color.
At least they’re not blue, Ichigo thought stupidly.
“Kurosaki,” Grimmjow said through a jaw wound tighter than if it’d been wired.
It was through his name alone that Ichigo finally clued into the one key discrepancy in Grimmjow’s appearance.
He didn’t have a mask.
Both of Grimmjow’s cheeks were nothing but smooth skin, paler than normal due to the cold, but completely bare to the world, with no sign of a fragmented bone mask in sight. It had Ichigo gaping like a fish; nothing else about him was different, his hair was just as ridiculously blue, and his estigma were like two teal blades beneath both of his eyes. There just wasn’t a mask. It was jarring in a way Ichigo never would have expected, leaving him feeling off-balance, and an uncomfortable itch in the back of his mind that told him something was missing.
“Ichigo!” Isshin called from the living room, sounding remarkably well for having been drowning in his own nasal mucus about thirty-odd seconds ago. “Is that the Arrancar you’re always lamenting about?”
Heat rushed to Ichigo’s cheeks in an instant, and he turned his head to send a glare down the hallway that his goat-faced father wouldn’t see. “I don’t lament一”
“What was his name again?” Isshin continued, as if he hadn’t heard the response. “Grimmjaw?”
Feeling fit to combust, Ichigo opened his mouth to retort, but Grimmjow chose that as his opportunity to slip inside.
“Move,” he said, though it was more of a grunt than anything else, and shouldered past Ichigo into the foyer.
Ichigo stared, open-mouthed and dumbstruck, as Grimmjow stalked down the hall in one long line of monochrome. He barely had the mind to shut the door and lock it again before he was scrambling after him. “Grimmjow, wait. Hey, stop.” He reached out to grab the collar of his jacket.
Grimmjow wrenched himself out of Ichigo’s hold and sent him a scathing look from over his shoulder. He only stopped when he reached the border of the living room, where his stupid little eyebrows pulled together to form a frown as he surveyed Ichigo’s family.
Isshin gave the Arrancar a squinty look full of parental judgement. “So you’re the one Ichigo talks about all the time.” He paused for long enough that Grimmjow sent Ichigo an equally confused and somehow furious look which only had his cheeks burning hotter. Then Isshin nodded like he’d come to some sort of decision. “You’re free to court my son as much as you wish.”
That statement resulted in a mortified “Dad!” from Ichigo, as well as an equally loud “What the fuck,” from Grimmjow, both of which were rivaled by the excited gasp that came from Yuzu.
She was sitting straight up in her spot on the couch, and leaning around Karin, eyes fixed on Grimmjow like he was that new frying pan she’d wanted for Christmas. “I can see him!” she said. Excitement was sparkling in her eyes, brimming over like a fountain. “Ichi-nii I can see him!”
“Wait, you can?” Ichigo turned to Grimmjow, who was burning an angry hole into the floorboards with his glare alone. “Why can she see you?”
His eyes slid even further away from Ichigo and he lifted a shoulder in a quick half-shrug. “In a gigai.”
Yuzu’s excitement evaporated just as quickly as it had arrived, and she sat back with a disappointed, “Oh.”
Grimmjow lifted his head and turned suspicious eyes on their staircase. “Where’s your shower?”
“Up the stairs and to the left,” Isshin said cheerfully, followed by Grimmjow legging it towards the stairs before he could even fully finish his sentence. “Be careful in there you two. Slippery tiles can ruin the mood.”
Ichigo didn’t even deign that with a response, just sent his perverted father a disdainful look. Then he was hurrying after Grimmjow again, thumping up the stairs and trying to catch the stupid Arrancar before something even stupider happened like being locked out of his own bathroom.
That was exactly what happened.
Ichigo reached the bathroom just as Grimmjow slammed the door in his face. He heard the click of the lock and followed it up with pounding a fist on the door. He stubbornly refused to acknowledge the irony in their switched positions. “Hey! What the fuck is wrong with you? Grimmjow!”
All he received in return was a muffled, “Fuck off.” Then the sound of the shower turning on bled through the door, which signaled an end to that butchered conversation. Ichigo was left standing alone in the hallway, feeling a multitude of emotions, and not sure which one to pick. At the forefront, anger and confusion were battling it out for first place, but not far behind stood pure mortification. He didn’t talk about Grimmjow all the time. He only brought him up occasionally, at the most. How couldn’t he when they sparred almost every week? It was completely natural that he’d bring up their fights if he was doing something as simple as talking about his day.
Then again, he hadn’t seen Grimmjow in nearly two weeks. Maybe he had been talking about him a little more because of it. That still didn’t warrant the complete and utter embarrassment Isshin had just been. Ichigo would give anything for his father to at least pretend to be normal, once and a while.
Exasperated, he bumped his knuckles against the wood of the door in the saddest rendition of a punch he could muster. What was Grimmjow even doing here? And why was he in a gigai, of all things? It explained the lack of a mask, as well as how cold he’d seemed, but little else. Ichigo chewed at the inside of his cheek; why couldn’t that blue-haired bastard have offered him even the smallest semblance of explanations before breaking into his house and commandeering their shower?
“So are you not coming back down?” Karin’s voice sounded from down the hall. She was standing at the top of the staircase, idly scratching her stomach. The demented eyes of the elf on her sweater looked like they were staring right at him.
“No.” Ichigo sighed. “I guess I have to deal with… that.” He nodded at the door in defeat.
“Kay,” she said, turning to leave.
“Wait, Karin. Do I- uh- do I really talk about him all the time?”
She gave him the flattest, most unimpressed stare he thought he’d ever seen resting on her teenage, angst-ridden features. “It’s weird if you don’t bring him up at least every few days, Ichi-nii.” With that killing blow, she turned back around and thundered down the stairs.
He felt the urge to melt into the floor and be done with it all manifest as a raging blush across his entire face. It wasn’t that bad… was it? Ichigo tried to think of what he usually talked about with his family, and came to the horrifying realization that Grimmjow might take up more of that real estate than he’d originally thought.
Enough introspection, he told himself, somewhat desperately. Go be productive.
Being productive apparently entailed finding some suitable clothes for Grimmjow to wear一he couldn’t possibly have wanted to wear his snow-soaked jumpsuit after showering一and dumping them outside the front of the bathroom door. He considered calling through the door to let Grimmjow know they were there, but he was feeling a little spiteful, so he didn’t. He thought he was justified; two weeks of complete radio silence, and now out of the blue he had to lend the asshole his shower. He was justified.
After dumping the clothes, Ichigo considered going back down to join his family in their binge, but quickly decided against it. He’d rather not have anything similar to the disaster that was Isshin meeting Grimmjow happen again. So he settled on collapsing onto his bed with the door to his room open. He flipped through an old manga that had been sitting forgotten on his desk while he waited.
Twenty minutes later, Grimmjow appeared with damp hair that hung over his brow. He’d dressed in the clothes Ichigo had given him, and though the hoodie fit, the sweatpants hovered just above his ankles. “Thanks for the clothes,” he grunted, and tossed his sodden jumpsuit onto the floor with a wet sounding splat.
Ichigo’s brow ticked. He sat up against his bed frame and lowered the manga. “No problem.” He paused, but it seemed that Grimmjow was unwilling to make the first move; he remained standing in the doorway with an irritated expression, hands shoved in pockets. A faint shiver was still making its way through his frame. Ichigo ran a hand through his hair and let out a sigh. “What are you doing here, Grimmjow? I thought you were going to be at Urahara’s tonight.”
Well, he didn’t think that. He’d heard from Kon, who had also planned on attending that particular drinking party. Ichigo would have gone too, if he hadn’t known that the rest of his family would throw a fit over him missing their annual binge.
“I was,” he said, disturbingly murderous sounding considering the situation. “They get fuckin’ weird when they’re drunk though.”
“That’s not news,” Ichigo pointed out. He could still remember with perfect clarity the night Yoruichi had gotten sloshed on her special Seireitei moonshine and forced Kon into lingerie. He hadn’t seemed to mind, but Ichigo had fled in fear that she’d focus her attention elsewhere. “You know that they all turn into weirdos when they’re drunk.” Not that they weren’t weirdos to begin with.
“Maybe I didn’t want to deal with those dipshits tonight.”
Annoyance flickered inside of Ichigo like a low flame. He closed his manga and set it on the desk, turning to fully face Grimmjow一who still hadn’t moved from the doorway. It was like there was some sort of invisible barrier keeping him from taking that final step; a glass wall cutting in between them.
“So, what?” he asked. “You decided running across town in a fucking gigai during a blizzard was the way to go?”
Grimmjow let out a snarl that hardly sounded human. “That’s not what fuckin’ happened.”
“Then what the fuck did happen? Why are you here?”
“They kicked me out!” he snapped, finally turning his head to face Ichigo. His eyes were blazing like a gas flame, and his lips had curled back to display unnaturally sharp canines. “Those fuckers thought it would be funny to throw me out into a blizzard and lock the damn door!”
“That still doesn’t explain the gigai!”
“Kisuke doesn’t let me stay in the shop unless I fuckin’ wear one!” Grimmjow snapped. “The only time I don’t have to is when I’m sparring with you! It’s some Soul Society bullshit. Fuckin’ regulations or whatever.”
Ichigo frowned, brows drawing together to form a furrow as he finally took pause to digest Grimmjow’s words. “They really threw you out into a blizzard?” The Urahara crowd was crazy on a sober day, but that didn’t sound like something they’d pull. Even blackout drunk, it was just a little too mean for Ichigo to find believable.
Grimmjow scowled, angry where the corners of his lips downturned and his eyes narrowed. Another heavy silence hung in the air, but this time filled with a tension that Ichigo didn’t quite understand. “Move over,” he finally said.
“What?”
“I said move over. I’m fucking freezing.”
Brain still processing that last sentence, Ichigo let out an undignified yelp when Grimmjow shoved him onto the right side of the bed. Evidently the glass wall had been broken, and all it had taken was nothing more than Grimmjow’s incessant bullheadedness.
“What the hell,” he said, unsure of whether to be annoyed or happy with this new development. On the upside, Grimmjow was on his bed. On the downside… Grimmjow was on his bed. Annoyance won out in the end. “There’s a whole ass desk chair right there, get off my bed!”
Grimmjow just tucked his hands into the sleeves of his new hoodie and stared at the wall with an expression fit to kill. “No.”
At that singular word, Ichigo’s temper finally snapped. “Asshole一 get off!”
The resulting struggle was something Ichigo would look back on in embarrassment; it ended with his face being shoved into his own pillow, and Grimmjow’s entire solid weight bearing down on his spine. “Kurosaki, would you just fuckin’ listen to me for a second?”
“Why should I when you didn’t even answer my question? Dick.” Ichigo kicked out with one of his legs, but only succeeded in nailing Grimmjow in the asscheek with his heel.
He let out an irritated growl, but barely moved. “I’m going to, so shut the fuck up for a second.”
“Stop trying to smother me with my own pillow and maybe I will.”
The hold on the back of his head tightened for only a moment, then vanished. Immediately, Ichigo shoved Grimmjow off, and moved to sit against the wall. Asshole really thought he could manhandle him on his own bed.
“Well?” he asked, the remnants of his temper still thrumming steadily beneath his skin. “Care to share with the class?”
Grimmjow folded his long legs beneath him and went back to glaring at the sheets. His expression was pinched, in a constipated sort of way. “They didn’t… throw me out, exactly.”
Knew it. “Well, if they didn’t throw you out, how’d you end up on my porch?”
More uncomfortable shifting of weight. Grimmjow looked like he was hoping to melt a hole in the floor so that the structural integrity of the room would fail and their conversation would end. “Kisuke said he wanted to help me make nice.” Voice tense, the words dragged themselves out from between Grimmjow’s teeth like it was a physical labor to speak them into existence.
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” They were already on good terms. He and Grimmjow didn’t need to “make nice.” Hell, they sparred almost every week, and would hang out at Urahara’s drinking parties nearly as often as they fought. Ichigo was pretty sure he was the closest thing to a friend Grimmjow had, regardless of whether or not he wanted more than that.
A great, heavy sigh expelled from Grimmjow’s nose. The crisp blue of his eyes slid across their white backdrop to instead scowl at a spot right in front of his legs. Whether he was working his jaw in the steady rhythm of irritation or discomfort, Ichigo couldn’t tell.
Then, he lifted a hand, and for a single, stupid second, Ichigo thought Grimmjow was going to grab his knee.
But no, his hand moved past his knee, and came to a halt by Ichigo’s own hand, where he intertwined their fingers like it was nothing. The grip was too tight, and when Grimmjow squeezed, the audible pop from one of Ichigo’s knuckles filled the silent air. He still hadn’t stopped staring at the sheets.
“I wasn’t quoting Kisuke word for word, you dumbass,” he muttered.
Ichigo blinked, feeling well and truly speechless. There was a faint flush dusting the pale surface of Grimmjow’s cheeks, and his hold on Ichigo’s hand was tightening the longer the quiet continued.
“Oh.”
One of Grimmjow’s eyebrows twitched, and he finally looked up to meet Ichigo’s flabbergasted gaze. “That’s all you’re gonna say?”
“Well- I…” He shoved his unoccupied hand through his hair, bothered with his own inability to string a sentence together. Unfortunately, his focus was being drawn by the comfortable sensation of fingers interlocking with his own. Grimmjow’s hands were long and nimble一surprising for a fighter一with calluses coating his palm, born from countless hours spent training with a sword. His skin was warm, and the backs of his knuckles were satisfyingly rough under Ichigo’s touch. When a thumb came to brush the backs of his own knuckles, he felt his brain short circuit a little.
“Kurosaki?” Grimmjow asked. There was a layer of nerves there, but it was combated by the tinge of amusement that was working its way into his tone. “You listening?”
Ichigo jolted, his cheeks beginning to burn in an unfortunately familiar way. He scowled, gripping Grimmjow’s hand until he heard a respective knuckle pop. “I am. It’s just一 you could have just said so. You didn’t need to be so,” he made an inarticulate gesture, “vague.”
“Fuckin’ thanks, Kurosaki,” Grimmjow sneered. “I’ll be sure to keep that in mind the next time I confess my fuckin’ feelings.”
“You do that,” he snapped.
The hand-holding, which could have been considered sort of nice a moment ago, was rapidly devolving into a competition to see who could break whose hand faster. It seemed as if it would end in a tie, but Ichigo didn’t let that stop him from trying to crush the bones in Grimmjow’s fingers. He couldn’t lose, after all.
And as they continued to argue, Ichigo couldn’t help but let a genuine smile overtake his face. He didn’t think Grimmjow would mind.
Not at all.