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Grimmjow has no idea how long it’s been, how long since the fighting stopped and he was able to burrow into the sand, spiritual pressure pulled in as far as it would go. How long since Kurosaki’s spiritual pressure had flickered, changed, then vanished entirely. Even with the damage to the dome - and when did that happen? He doesn't remember - the light is a constant and time blurs together. Could be hours, could be months. As injured as he is, it’ll take a long time to heal just from absorbing ambient reishi.
A shadow blocks out the light and Grimmjow goes still, readying himself.
He's still injured, but if something's found him while looking for a snack, they're about to get a nasty surprise.
"Are you still alive, arrancar-san?" a voice says from right above him. Grimmjow doesn't recognize it, but it doesn't sound like a hollow. Human? Maybe another one of those shinigami bastards.
Maybe the voice knows Kurosaki.
He makes the effort to crack open an eye, see who the fuck has decided to come bother him during his convalescence. The angle blurs a lot of the details into shadow and everything is upside down and way too close, but he gets the impression of frizzy hair under a hat, mild curiosity and amusement, fabric draping in a way he's come to associate with shinigami. Not anyone he recognizes.
"Aha, you are alive," the shinigami says, sounding pleased about that.
“Fuck off,” Grimmjow says, closing his eye again.
“And here I was, prepared to offer a full kidou healing, no strings attached,” the shinigami says, sighing. Grimmjow can feel the puff of air against his bare cheek. “But if you really don’t want my assistance, I can leave you be. I suppose the sand has some sort of passive healing ability?”
Asshole. Grimmjow opens his eyes again, scowling up at the shinigami. “Why the fuck would you want to heal me?” he asks. Last he knew, the shinigami were the enemy, after all. Maybe Kurosaki actually succeeded in defeating Aizen? It seems the most logical conclusion, given how casual this shinigami is being in the middle of Las Noches.
The hat and hair tip to the side. “There are relatively few fully-evolved arrancar left,” he says. “Natural or otherwise. Not everyone wishes your kind to be eradicated.”
Grimmjow considers that. He gets the implication, that this shinigami falls in that camp of people who don’t want to kill him just because of what he is, but there’s so much left unsaid that it just makes him more suspicious. “Why shouldn’t I tell you to just leave me here? Full offense, but I’ll heal on my own eventually.”
“Ah, I suppose you don’t have much reason,” the shinigami hums. “Let’s see. I’m capable of keeping you out of Kurotsuchi’s clutches?”
“Who the fuck is Kurotsuchi?”
“Fair enough. Hm. I can arrange passage to the living world?”
Grimmjow hesitates. Kurosaki’s from the living world. There’s a decent chance this shinigami knows Kurosaki and might know where to find him. Grimmjow could get a rematch, a proper rematch. “Why would I want to go to the living world?”
“Well,” the shinigami starts, amused, and Grimmjow knows his hesitation was noticed, that he’s all but signed himself away. “For one, Kurosaki-san lives there. He was very eager for a rematch with you before, arrancar-san. Weren’t you eager for it, too?”
“Fuck you,” Grimmjow says.
His eyes have adjusted to the shadow over him and this time he sees the curve of a smile, pleased and a little bit smug. “I see,” the shinigami says, like Grimmjow’s answer had made sense. “Let me heal you and I will arrange for passage to the living world and a gigai for your personal use while you’re there.”
It’s the most concrete thing the shinigami has said so far and Grimmjow is still suspicious as all hell of the offer. “What’s in it for you, shinigami?”
“What’s in it for me?” Surprise, wide eyes and lifted eyebrows. Grimmjow’s pretty sure it’s fake. “Why, nothing! I just enjoy helping out when I can. I’m a very helpful person, you know.”
“No,” Grimmjow growls. “I don’t. Nothing’s free, so what the fuck do you want from me?”
The surprise fades away to something more focused, calculating. It feels a lot more real and Grimmjow narrows his eyes. “I see. Very well. What I want from you is three things,” the shinigami says. He holds up a finger. “One, I want to study your reiatsu, which I can do while you’re being healed. Don’t worry, none of the procedures are invasive!”
A second finger. “Two, I run a shop that specializes in, ah, hard to acquire goods.” Smuggling, Grimmjow translates. “I would appreciate some additional assistance in obtaining some of those goods.”
A third finger doesn’t join the first two and Grimmjow scowls. “And the third thing?” he prompts when the shinigami doesn’t continue right away.
The shinigami hums, but lifts a third finger after a moment. “This would be a personal request,” he says. “But it’s been a while and nothing else seems to have worked.”
“Get to the point, shinigami.”
“Kurosaki-san is a very difficult person to buy a gift for,” the shinigami says, like that’s supposed to mean something to Grimmjow. “So, I thought maybe I wouldn’t actually buy him anything. And you would look rather fetching in some ribbon and a bow, I think.”
“The only thing I’m gonna give him is a fist to the face the next time I see him,” Grimmjow snarls. Three fights: a win, a draw, and a loss each. And then that absolutely humiliating moment when Kurosaki stepped between Nnoitra’s blade and Grimmjow’s throat and Grimmjow is going to kill him next time.
Weirdly, this seems to be exactly the response the shinigami wants. He all but beams at Grimmjow. “Perfect! That would be absolutely marvelous, I think! Then you’ll do it?”
Grimmjow scowls up at him, trying to figure out where the hell things had gotten so weird. He can understand the first two reasons, those stand to provide a benefit to this strange shinigami, but trying to, what, make Kurosaki happy by throwing Grimmjow at him? Grimmjow isn’t here to make Kurosaki happy, he is here to fuck his shit up until Kurosaki recognizes Grimmjow’s strength.
And yet, running a few errands and letting the guy get a better look at his spiritual energy is a pittance in return for being healed and then being able to challenge Kurosaki again, no matter what else this shinigami thinks he might do.
“Yeah,” he agrees finally. “I’ll do it. You’ll get me to the living world?”
“Pinky promise,” the shinigami says, holding out his little finger. Grimmjow scoffs.
“Fine. We’ll start with that, then. You can fix me up once we’re there.” Where there is one shinigami, after all, there are likely to be more. Grimmjow isn’t gonna stick around and risk getting found and dragged off for god knows what. He’ll take the devil in hand over the devil in the bush, thanks.
The shinigami smiles down at him, still upside down, then stands and bends to offer Grimmjow his hand. “It’s a deal. Might I have your name, arrancar-san?”
“Grimmjow,” he growls, ignoring the offered hand as he slowly pushes himself out of the sand. The injuries were deep and they’re still painful, but he’s not going to fall to pieces in the immediate future. “Grimmjow Jeagerjaques.”
“Nice to meet you, Jaegerjaques-san,” the shinigami says, having no apparent difficulty with his name. “I am Urahara Kisuke.”
~*~
The gigai is weird. Just a meatsack with no defining features, no spiritual pressure of its own. Surprisingly heavy, once he figures out how to get into it. The weight of a body, he figures. It takes a bit of practice to get in and out of it easily and he’ll admit to getting stuck the first time over his own dead body, but it’s not too bad, all things considered.
Pantera translates through, but his mask fragment doesn’t and neither does the hole in his abdomen, but the worst part of wearing the gigai is the way it muffles his powers.
He can still throw a bala, manages a cero once, but it’s harder to draw out the power to do so, like he has to pull the power through a very fine sieve.
Urahara had a whole spiel when Grimmjow asked about it, but all he remembers is that there are limiters built in to prevent the gigai from exploding under the force of its inhabitant's spiritual pressure. Which is fine, he guesses, it's not like he plans to fight in the gigai, but it’s still uncomfortable as hell, having everything squeezed down to almost nothing.
But Urahara was very clear that if Grimmjow leaves the shop, he needs to be in the gigai. Which, weird-ass house rules, but whatever. Not like Grimmjow has space to complain at the moment.
A week into his stay at Urahara’s shop, he’s fully healed and no longer tripping over his own feet and he feels as ready as he'll ever be to finally track down Kurosaki. The gigai muffles his pesquisa unless he’s almost on top of the spiritual pressures he’s trying to find, but even out of it he's having a hard time figuring out where Kurosaki is. It's like the guy's actually vanished.
He asks about that, too, and Urahara just flutters that stupid fan and feeds him some bullshit line about extenuating circumstances and advanced techniques. Grimmjow doesn’t buy it, but he also doesn’t have anything else to go off of.
So, he enlists some help.
"He'll be getting out of school shortly," Tessai says, getting up to rummage through a couple of drawers. "You'd do best to catch him on his way home. Take this map. The city looks different from the street level."
So, armed with a map - marked in bright pink pen to show Kurosaki's school, home, the path he usually took between the two, and how to get there from the shop - and bundled up in a hooded jacket and scarf - he gets cold in the gigai, no hierro to block the chill, and it’s apparently winter out there now - he heads out to finally get his rematch.
Tessai marked a bridge as the best place to wait for Kurosaki, so Grimmjow heads for that. It doesn't take long, he's eager to get there and his stride is long, but he’s grateful for the directions.
The city does look different from the ground, especially when he can't just step up into the air, float high above it. The buildings are closer together, have surprising amounts of detail that he'd never noticed on his previous visits. It's not enough to keep him from his goal, but the map helps get him back on track when he accidentally takes a wrong turn.
The bridge is empty when he arrives, so he scouts out the area a little, keeping an eye out for Kurosaki as he does. Kurosaki hasn't shown by the time he's done and he leans against the bridge railing, prepared to wait, watching a distant flock of birds flying in a ragged V.
Migrating, he thinks. Flying to warmer climes. He has no idea why he knows that. It’s not like they get a lot of migratory birds in Hueco Mundo.
He doesn't have to wait long, at least.
“Grimmjow?”
He tips his head down from the sky to look at Kurosaki. He hadn’t felt him approaching, but there he is. Same orange hair, same wide brown eyes, same wiry build - though maybe a smidge taller, a bit wider in the shoulders. All that strength and power, squashed down into a body of flesh, just like himself. Looking a bit stupid right now, really, a little too surprised, but Grimmjow had probably been considered dead after everything.
“Hey, Kurosaki,” he says, grins wide and sharp. Not quite as wide and sharp as usual, human bodies have too many limitations. And he doesn’t think it works quite as well without the mask fragment, but it’ll do. “Been a while.”
That just confuses the kid more for some reason and Grimmjow’s grin fades in favor of a frown.
“Hey, anyone at home in there?” he asks, closing the gap between them and reaching out to knock his knuckles against Kurosaki’s forehead. He grins again at a sudden thought. “Cat got your tongue?”
Kurosaki finally moves at that, hand coming up to catch Grimmjow’s wrist. “I - what?” he asks, eyes shifting to look at Grimmjow’s hand, wide. “You - are you in a gigai?”
“Yeah, why? You think it makes me look fat?” This isn’t going how Grimmjow had expected and he’s not sure why. “The fuck’s up with you? You get a head injury or something? Aizen mess with you?”
Kurosaki yanks his focus from Grimmjow’s hand back to his face. “Aizen? No, he didn’t - I don’t have a head wound - “
“Then what?” Grimmjow interrupts. “Did you think I was dead? That I wasn’t gonna come back for a proper fight?”
That gets a reaction that isn’t just more confusion, Kurosaki’s face closing off around a flash of grief. Kurosaki lets go of his wrist and Grimmjow pulls his arm back, rubbing absently at the place where Kurosaki had been touching him. The skin there feels warmer than the rest.
“...You don’t know,” Kurosaki says, quiet. “They didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?” Grimmjow asks, eyes narrowing. Urahara hadn’t really told him much, just things about the gigai, human things that he’d need to know how to use or interact with. Grimmjow hadn’t realized there was more he needed to ask about. “What don’t I know?”
Kurosaki huffs and Grimmjow thinks it’s supposed to be a laugh, but it sounds empty and wrong. He shakes his head, looks away from Grimmjow. “God, this is….fuck. Uh. Aizen...the fight with Aizen. That was over a year ago.”
“The fuck it was,” is Grimmjow’s immediate reaction, but Kurosaki hasn’t lied to him, has never lied to him, not with words and not through his sword. There’s no reason for him to be lying now. But still. “A fucking year?”
“Fourteen months, actually,” Kurosaki says.
Grimmjow works that over in his head, fitting it into what he knows, what has happened. He spent a whole year in the sands of Hueco Mundo, then, unaware of the time passing. It seems weird that he hadn’t been found earlier, but maybe the shinigami had been focused elsewhere.
“Doesn’t matter,” he decides. “One month or fourteen, it doesn’t matter. I’m here now and I’m gonna kick your ass again.”
“Ah,” Kurosaki says. “That...that’s the other thing.” He lifts a hand, adjusts the strap of his bag. “In order to stop Aizen, I had to...there’s this technique. The final Getsuga Tensho.”
“Final…?”
“Yeah.” Kurosaki looks at him, then, mouth turned up at the corner, like he’s trying to smile. It just looks like a grimace. “It was the only thing that could overpower Aizen, but...the cost was my powers. I’m human now. Just human. Sorry.”
Grimmjow takes a step back, looking Kurosaki over. He looks the same, is the thing. A little taller, a little broader, but that makes sense if it’s been over a year since he last saw him. But human? He’s never been just human .
“Bullshit,” he says.
Another not-laugh. “No, really. If you weren’t in a gigai, I wouldn’t even know you were there, let alone be able to touch you or talk to you. I can’t even see regular ghosts anymore, let alone hollows or - or shinigami.”
This is why Urahara had been so insistent on the gigai, Grimmjow thinks. Because he knew about Kurosaki, knew that Grimmjow wouldn’t have been able to do jack shit if he didn’t have one.
He crosses his arms, frowning. “Why the fuck would you go and do something like that?”
“I kinda had to,” Kurosaki says, shrugging one shoulder. “Aizen became too powerful, there wasn’t any other way to beat him. And turns out it wasn’t even enough, all I could do was weaken him so that Urahara’s kido could bind him.”
Urahara has a lot to answer for, Grimmjow thinks. Bastard shinigami.
Kurosaki just stands there, one hand around the strap of his bag, looking weirdly tired and just….pathetic. This isn’t the same guy that had launched himself at Grimmjow’s sword like a man with nothing on his mind but finding out who was stronger.
“Right,” Grimmjow decides. “Fuck that.”
“Wha-”
Grimmjow’s punch sends Kurosaki over the rail and into the grass that lines the river. He lands in a sprawl, bag half squashed under him, one leg caught on the rail, arms splayed out in a vain attempt to break his fall.
“What the hell!”
“You promised me a fight,” Grimmjow says, hopping over the rail. “Come on. I’m in a gigai, so we’re the same like this, right? Not quite what I had in mind, but fists are better than nothing, I guess.”
Kurosaki’s picking himself up, still looking confused as hell. “I’m not going to fight you like this, Grimmjow,” he says.
“Lie,” Grimmjow says, grinning at him again.
“I’m human,” Kurosaki continues. “I’m not - I don’t have my sword anymore.”
Grimmjow shrugs. “Then I won’t use mine,” he says. A pity, he’d been looking forward to feeling Kurosaki’s sword against Pantera again, but eh. He’ll survive.
“No, that’s not - that’s not what I meant,” Kurosaki says. He’s upright again, straightening his coat and bag. “I can’t - I’m no good like this.”
“So, what, you lost your powers and you just gave up?” Grimmjow asks, frowning. “You sure you didn’t get a head injury?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” Kurosaki huffs. “Fuck, Grimmjow, I don’t know what you thought you’d get by coming here, but I’m not - there’s nothing for you here.”
“Think you should let me be the judge of that,” Grimmjow says. He eyes Kurosaki’s stance. “You’re gonna go ass over tit again if I punch you like that, c’mon. Square up or whatever.”
“I don’t want to fight you, Grimmjow!”
Grimmjow rolls his eyes. “Lie,” he says. “Stop lying, Kurosaki. Put your fists up and fight me “
“ No !” Kurosaki almost yells it, hands curled into fists. “I’m useless! I’m a normal fucking human and I don’t have any powers anymore and I can’t change that and you can’t change that!”
The words hang between them, Kurosaki’s eyes wide, mouth open as he pants.
Grimmjow is still for a moment, thinking. It’s been a while, Urahara said. Nothing else has worked . Grimmjow is starting to think that maybe the actual reason Urahara has been willing to facilitate his pursuit of Kurosaki is because no one else has been able to get through to him. Not that he knows what Urahara thinks he might do differently.
Kurosaki’s shoulders sag, his whole demeanor deflating. “Just go back to Hueco Mundo or whatever, Grimmjow. Sorry I couldn’t make good on that promise.”
“Yeeeaaah,” Grimmjow says slowly, tipping his head back. The geese are almost out of view now. “No, I don’t think I will. You said it’s been, what, fourteen months? And you’re still like this? Then someone needs to pound some sense into you and since no one else seems to be stepping up, guess that leaves it to me.” He looks down at Kurosaki again and grins at the muddle of surprise and confusion on Kurosaki’s face. “Fists up, Kurosaki, or you’re gonna regret it.”
He gives just a second for Kurosaki to process that, then throws his left fist at Kurosaki’s stupid, dumb face.
His knuckles hit canvas instead of skin, Kurosaki using the bag as a shield, and Grimmjow grins. That’s better.
A good block isn’t everything though, and he opens his hand, grips at the bag to tear it away, right fist already heading for Kurosaki’s gut. Kurosaki seems to have gotten the message, an open palm slapping at Grimmjow’s wrist, pushing his punch off course.
Grimmjow tosses the bag at Kurosaki’s face, follows behind it with a whoop. He's gotten used to using his sword, to the dance of blade against blade, and it's been a while since he was reduced to fisticuffs, but it's not something you forget easily. His feet shift against the ground, steady and bracing, his fists hover in a vague block except when he's reaching out in a punch or a grab.
Kurosaki's form is a little different, his stance not as practiced, but his punches have force behind them. Grimmjow lands the first hit, solid against the meat of Kurosaki’s shoulder, but Kurosaki draws first blood, his knuckle against Grimmjow’s cheek and copper on his tongue. He spits it out, bright red and vital, and grins.
“There you are,” he says and launches himself at Kurosaki.
It's like a switch is thrown, the difference between night and day. Kurosaki goes from mostly defensive to something more like the all-out, no-holds-barred style Grimmjow remembers. A tinge of desperation in the way he moves, too-fast like he's scared of falling behind. Eyes narrow and focused, like Grimmjow and this fight are the only things Kurosaki cares about right now.
Grimmjow loves it.
He forgets about Urahara, forgets about how much time has apparently passed, forgets everything but the fight here and now. He throws himself at Kurosaki time and time again, finds himself met every time by Kurosaki doing the same.
They fight until the gigai is weighing Grimmjow down like lead, until Kurosaki’s back is similarly bowed, both of them panting for air and unable to throw even one more punch.
Grimmjow has a bloody lip, a bloody nose, a set of bloody scratches where Kurosaki's nails had caught and dragged along his waist when his shirt had ridden up.
Kurosaki isn't any better off: bloody nose, bloody lip, split knuckles, what looks like the beginning of an impressive shiner.
"Shit," Kurosaki mutters, spitting out blood and wiping his nose in his sleeve. It leaves a trail of rusty red that makes Grimmjow grin. "Ow."
"Wimp," Grimmjow says, hands braced on his knees. "Need me to get that woman for you again? Fix your boo boos?"
"Gigai or no, I'll kill you if you go near Inoue," Kurosaki growls, eyes flashing. It's great and Grimmjow laughs at it.
"Those are the eyes I came to see," he says, teeth bared in a feral grin. "Feeling better?"
Kurosaki doesn't answer for a moment, hand flexing slowly against his thigh. "Yeah," he says finally. "I am. Thanks."
Grimmjow snorts. "Don't be thanking me," he says. "I'm still going to kill you."
This time, he gets a lopsided smile. "Yeah, sure. Hey, if you've got a gigai, are you staying with Urahara?"
"Yeah. What about it?"
"He's got some healing springs under the shop," Kurosaki says. "Once we can move, we can go there, get fixed up. My dad would probably kill both of us if we show up at the clinic like this."
Grimmjow doesn't give a single flying fuck about Kurosaki's father, but a soak in a hot spring sounds really good, healing properties or no. "Yeah, alright."
It takes almost an hour for them to limp their way back to the shop, trading insults and information in almost equal measure. Grimmjow shares what it's been like, staying at the shop, and Ichigo tells him about everything that happened after Nnoitra showed up. It's an interesting story; Grimmjow will have to do some independent investigation before he believes most of it.
Once they get to the shop, though, Kurosaki clams up, fingers going tight around the strap of his bag. Grimmjow pretends not to notice, walks through the shop proper to the raised entryway to the rest of the house. It takes a moment before he hears the door shut behind him and Kurosaki's slow steps follow.
No one has come to greet them and Grimmjow wonders if that's on purpose, letting Kurosaki make his own choice to come in like a stray cat being lured inside.
Kurosaki toes off his shoes, drops his bag next to them, follows when Grimmjow opens the door and heads for the trapdoor that leads down into the basement. He's been down there already, making sure he was fighting fit after being healed, but he hadn’t seen any springs.
It's tempting to step out of the gigai, to drop down into the basement on steps of reishi, but that defeats the purpose of Kurosaki coming with. He frowns; this lack-of-powers thing is going to be frustrating. And he's only had to consider it for a few hours. No wonder Kurosaki is such a depressed blob if he's been dealing with it for over a year.
Taking the ladder down is annoying as hell and Grimmjow makes a mental reminder to punch Urahara for making the basement so deep.
"I don't know why, but I kind of thought it would look different than before," Kurosaki says when he joins Grimmjow at the base of the ladder. "But it doesn't."
"Reminisce later," Grimmjow says, sharp. His body is aching something fierce now that he's stopped moving as much. "Where are the springs?"
Kurosaki blinks, looks around again, then heads off. Without any better options, Grimmjow follows.
The springs are tucked into the corner of the cavern, hidden behind a tumble of rocks. Grimmjow starts stripping as soon as he sees the stream rising off the water, but Kurosaki turns away with a strangled sound, his ears turning red. It takes Grimmjow a minute to realize why and roll his eyes at human notions of decency.
He steps over to one of the pools, kicks his foot through it to make a splashing sound, and glances at Kurosaki's back. "Aaah, this hits the spot," he groans. "You can turn around now, you prude."
Kurosaki believes him - mistake number one - and yelps, hands flying up to cover his face when he realizes that Grimmjow is not, in fact, actually in the water and is still very much naked. "Grimmjow!"
Grimmjow cackles. This is almost as good as fighting the guy. "Prude," he says again, stepping down into the pool until the water comes up to mid-thigh. "Fine, it's safe for your virgin eyes now."
Kurosaki’s mistake number two is the same as mistake number one, only this time Grimmjow has to duck a rock when Kurosaki looks and finds out that Grimmjow lied again .
He's still laughing when he sinks down into the hot water for real, down until it covers his shoulders. He can already see bruises fading, split knuckles closing up.
Kurosaki strips down as fast as he can, slips into the water across from Grimmjow, ducking all the way under before sitting against the rock wall, head tipping back. “Urahara sent you, didn’t he?” he asks, not looking at Grimmjow.
Grimmjow snorts. “I’m not a dog, to be sent on errands,” he says, conveniently ignoring the fact that one of the conditions for his being here was to do exactly that. “Especially if they’re errands for Urahara. I’m here for my own reasons.”
“Right. Fighting me. Sorry all I can offer is a fist fight,” Kurosaki says.
“Don’t fucking apologize,” Grimmjow growls. “Just stop moping and figure out a way to get your powers back. I can wait.”
Kurosaki lifts his head at that, looking at him for a long moment. “Might be a while,” he says.
“I can wait,” Grimmjow says again, sinking a little lower into the water, head resting against a convenient rock, eyes closed. The heat is nice and the water makes the heavy gigai feel lighter. Makes it almost feel normal, if it weren’t for the way the reishi around them is sluggish, slow to respond.
“So,” Ichigo says again and Grimmjow sighs, cracks open one eye to look at him. Eyes fixed off to the side, ears red in a way that might or might not be the steam, shoulders up around his chin - Grimmjow almost sighs. He thought he beat that out of him. “Um.”
“Spit it out, Kurosaki,” Grimmjow says, closes his eye again.
“How’s, uh, how’s Hueco Mundo?”
“Lovely this time of year,” Grimmjow says, bland. “The moon’s in the exact same spot it’s been for the last thousand or more years, the sand is still endless, and why the fuck are you making small talk?”
He can practically feel the blush, even with the heat of the water. “What, I can’t be interested in how things have been?”
“I don’t actually know how things have been,” Grimmjow says, sinks down into the water a little more until his chin is touching it. “Been buried in the sand for, apparently, fourteen months.”
“...Oh.”
“Yeah, oh ,” Grimmjow says, vaguely mocking, but it’s hard to find the energy to make it properly biting when he’s feeling this nice. Hot springs are nice, he thinks, healing properties or no. “Anyway, even if I’d been up and walking around, Hueco Mundo doesn’t really change. Las Noches was the biggest thing to happen there in anyone’s memory.”
“...Right.”
Silence again. This is nice, too, Grimmjow thinks. Words are nuisances, anyway.
“When do you go back?” Kurosaki asks and it’s quiet, but not as awkward as the first question. Grimmjow looks at him. Still not looking at him, ears still red, but he’s not as defensive, more resigned. Grimmjow still hates it.
“How long did you say it would take you to get your powers back?” he asks instead of answering.
Kurosaki shrugs. “Could be never,” he says. “There’s the possibility I’d get them back when I die, but it’s not a guarantee.”
Grimmjow hums. Privately, he thinks that if Urahara has gone so far as to bring an arrancar from Hueco Mundo to the living world for the express purpose of getting one powerless kid out of his funk, there’s a good chance that the guy is also working on figuring out how to get Kurosaki’s powers back. Not that he’s told Kurosaki that, clearly. “Well, then,” he says. “Guess I’m sticking around that long.”
Kurosaki has the gall to look surprised at that, wide eyes finally looking at Grimmjow. “That could be another eighty years,” he says.
“I’m aware of how long humans live,” Grimmjow says, mild.
“I might not get my powers back when I die,” Kurosaki continues.
“Then I’ll just eat your soul when you die.” He’s got the scar, after all, but it would be better to have Kurosaki , the whole of him absorbed into the whole of Grimmjow, even without the power.
“So, you’re just gonna, what? Hang out until I get my powers back or die?”
Grimmjow shrugs. “Not like I’ve got much else to do at this point,” he says.
“I’m so glad to hear that, Jaegerjacques-san! I have plenty of errands for you to run while you wait!” Urahara’s voice rings out from somewhere.
“Shut the fuck up, shinigami!” Grimmjow snarls, but Kurosaki’s grinning over Urahara’s stupid twittering.
“So much for not doing errands for Urahara,” he says and Grimmjow grumbles into the water.
“Yeah, well, it was the price of getting here,” he huffs. Kurosaki’s grin softens a little, but doesn’t go away. “And you shut up, too. I ain’t letting you off the hook, we’re still gonna fight. Your form is sloppy and your footwork is atrocious.”
“I haven’t done karate since I was a kid,” Kurosaki says, but he doesn't sound apologetic at all, the bastard. "Besides, you can leave any time. Only thing keeping you here is you."
And. Well. Put like that, the only responses Grimmjow can think of all sound like he's just in denial about something. Which he's not . "I'm gonna eat you," he threatens instead.
It really doesn't have the same impact when they're naked and in a hot spring. Kurosaki fucking laughs at him.
"Not until I'm dead, at the earliest," Kurosaki says, entirely too cheerful about it.
Grimmjow kicks at him under the water, barely makes contact before there's a hand curling around his ankle, warm and firm. It doesn't let go and Grimmjow considers it for a second before leaving his leg stretched out. Whatever.
Kurosaki looks entirely different than he had on the bridge, relaxed and smiling and chin up. It's a much better look on him. Maybe this is what Urahara wanted, when he’d mentioned getting something for Kurosaki. You can't exactly gift wrap a sense of purpose, after all.
“Tch.” Grimmjow takes a breath, ducks into the water until it comes up to just below his eyes. Fingers squeeze his ankle and his leg twitches a little in reaction, but it’s not bothersome enough to make him pull away entirely.
They’re quiet for a long while, Grimmjow tipping his head up occasionally when the gigai needs oxygen, eyes mostly closed. Kurosaki’s relaxed against the other side of the pool, legs to one side, hand still around Grimmjow’s ankle, loose like he’s forgotten about it.
“Tomorrow,” Kurosaki says, quiet enough that Grimmjow’s not entirely sure he heard it. “Tomorrow, let’s fight again.”
Grimmjow sits up just enough to talk without swallowing water. “It’s a date,” he says and grins when Kurosaki sputters.