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Ichigo’s fingers slip on the door to his building and his momentum jerks him forward and he just about breaks his fucking nose on it. He rushes to pull it open again, fighting the wind. Embarrassing, but no one is out to see him. His neighbors must have more sense than him to be out in this shit. He’s pretty immune to embarrassment anyways.
It was a good idea to walk Orihime home. Not because she can’t take care of herself, because of course she can, but the thought of her being stuck in the rain — cold, stinging, sideways rain — just makes him sad. Like she’s some kind of small baby woodland creature with the gangly shivery legs and the sniffly nose, and the big, big eyes like she's been learning from Yuzu.
Some kind of small baby woodland creature with the power to deny God's autonomy. Or... something like that. Oh man. Scary.
She's home and inside and dry, is the point. And he would also like to be home and inside and dry. He would like that very much.
At least inside he can accomplish with another yank. He has to pull the door closed behind him to make sure it latches properly, but then he's out of the elements and dripping his way up to his apartment.
He slings his bag off his shoulder in the elevator. He checks to see if his books stayed dry, but then his hair drips right down in there and he closes it back up. There's just no winning. He's cold in that winter way, numb at the tip of his nose and his toes. The calendar says it's spring. It's supposed to be spring. Not whatever the hell this is. He's really, really glad he's got nowhere to be tomorrow. He wouldn't go even if he did. This is tea-and-book weather, okay, not running-around-between-classes weather, getting his damn notes and books and socks wet.
He used to think he didn't deserve a lot. Now he knows the least of what he deserves is dry fucking jeans.
Home now. He drops his bag and kicks his shoes and strips his coat. Rescues his notes and textbooks to put on the kitchen island where they can dry. They're mostly just damp. It's the rest of him that got the worst of it.
He realizes then that the rain sound is too loud. Wind warbling from further into his apartment. Ichigo sighs and lets his head tip back. He looks at the ceiling for a long moment. Then he goes and closes his balcony door.
There's not much of a puddle, all things considered. The door wasn't open more than a crack. That's... better than he's come to expect. That's pretty good, actually.
Doesn't mean there's no wet drippy trail wandering through his living room. He follows it and makes it worse, all the way to the bathroom. The door's closed. He can hear the shower running inside.
When he opens the door, he's hit by a wall of steam so thick it makes him cough, warm enough to get him tingling all over. Prickling the skin of his face. He closes the door fast behind him to keep it trapped inside. It's like a sauna. He already feels like he's melting, like it's making his hair drip faster. He trips over a boot, then the other one. Shoves them away with his foot without looking.
From the tub, sitting under the shower with his face angled into the spray, Grimmjow says, "Yo."
"Hi," Ichigo says back, because a greeting from Grimmjow that is both verbal and nonviolent deserves one in return, and squints down at him in the hazy steam.
He's in his jumpsuit still, belts and all, one leg folded under him and the other bent to lean against the wall of the tub. Hands in his lap. Hair slicked flat and dark. Not often that Ichigo gets to see him without his hair falling in his face. Kind of strange, actually. And his eyes are closed. That's less strange. His estigma is very bright in the whiteness of the room, the shapes of it gone blurry under the shower spray.
Ichigo looks at him for longer than he means to. His hair sends a chilly little dribble down the back of his shirt and he shudders and shakes himself. Destruction incarnate is sitting fully clothed in his bathtub and he's more surprised by the expression on his face. What a life.
Ichigo pulls his towel from the rod and starts scrubbing his hair. It's better immediately. Grimmjow doesn't look like he could be moved for fucking anything.
"Are you having a come-to-Jesus moment in my shower right now?"
A big sigh. Grimmjow opens his mouth to let the water in, but he doesn't swallow so it just pours back out again. Then he slits an eye open and glares sideways and says, "I don't know what that means."
"It– Nevermind. You look like you're having a good time."
The eye closes again and he rumbles. The sound is almost lost.
"How long have you been in there?"
"Dunno."
Ichigo passes his hand through the spray and jerks it back with a hiss. That explains the steam. He can't believe Grimmjow's skin isn't red or boiling off, hierro keeping him safe and insulated, soaking the heat. Ichigo knows he gets cold and stays cold. It doesn't seem to bother him, but he's always greedy for heat — blankets and skin and sun. Ichigo wonders if maybe he doesn't know he's cold until he's feeling its opposite.
Ichigo drops his towel and strips his shirt over his head. Pauses with it stuck around his arms. "You're not gonna let me get in there with you, are you?"
"No."
"Okay."
"Fuck off."
"I said okay, asshole. It's all yours." He drops his shirt and starts struggling out of jeans. Stiff and cold and heavy and scratching him in all the bad ways. "Don't bite my dick off."
Grimmjow snaps both sets of teeth. Click-clack. Ichigo rolls his eyes and gets down to his underwear. He kicks his pile of sodden wet clothes into the corner with Grimmjow's boots. He'd like to get good and naked, but clean clothes are in his bedroom and he hasn't lived on his own long enough for that to feel okay yet. He still thinks he'll turn a corner and trip over a little sister, sometimes — nevermind that they're not so little anymore. He doesn't miss them until he does, and then it feels like getting stabbed in some big empty space. The rain, beating a steady din outside the shower, only makes it worse.
Makes a couple things worse.
"I'm getting clothes," Ichigo says, "Don't go anywhere."
Quickly out and into his bedroom. His skin is damp and chilly and he's happy to cover back up, squirming into sweats and a hoodie, heavy and dry and warm. He shakes his head like a dog, tosses his hair out of his face. The world outside his window is dismal. He doesn't look at it for long. He finds his biggest pair of sweats and another clean shirt. Piles them on his arm, turns back down the hall. Then thinks better of it and grabs the t-shirt he slept in instead.
Grimmjow has not gone anywhere. He looks a little more melted if anything, elbow on his knee and his chin on his arm. Almost like sleeping. There must be a word for that look on his face, but Ichigo doesn't know it. Peaceful isn't it. Maybe he doesn't speak its language yet.
He puts the extra clothes by the sink and squats at the edge of the tub. The shower mists him, a shade hotter than the steam that settles nice and thick. Grimmjow's eyelashes are spiky and dark and they look extra long. Ichigo cocks his head and says, "Grimmjow."
No response. Not even a twitch of his eyes under his eyelids. Ichigo bites the smile out of the corner of his mouth. Can't keep it all the way down. "Hey. Don't ignore me, big guy."
More nothing. Grimmjow's maskless side is facing him. He's very handsome and smooth, even soaking wet with his hair plastered down. Ichigo lifts his hand, braves the molten spray, and pokes him in the cheek.
Grimmjow whips his head around and bites, fast and vicious, but Ichigo was ready for that. He smiles in Grimmjow's scowly face and hides his unsnapped fingers in his lap. Safe for the moment. Grimmjow glares at him with water streaming off the tip of his nose.
"You look like a drowned cat."
Grimmjow snarls and lunges for him. Ichigo skitters back, feet slipping and water sloshing everywhere, coughing a laugh as he scrambles out of range. Grimmjow's ribs hit the edge of the tub and he makes another low, growly noise, forced to stop or get all the way out. He stops. Heaves half a wheeze. And then he hangs there for a second, folded over the ledge with his arms going limp, fingers brushing the tile. Nose wrinkled all unhappy. But only for a second — until his head dips and his face twitches and settles smooth again. Looking pretty pathetic, actually, but Ichigo's keeping that to himself. His knees thunk the walls of the tub. The water's beating on his back now. Must feel nice. The whole thing is so baffling.
Ichigo picks himself up off the floor. Clothes still dry except for the cuffs of his pants. He'll take it; he was asking for worse. He pats the stack of clothes he left on the sink, catches the slow blink of Grimmjow's eyes.
"These are yours," he says. Deliberate, because Grimmjow will usually do the exact opposite of whatever he thinks he's being told to do. Better not to tell at all. Better to give him something for nothing and let him do what he wants from there. Took Ichigo a while to figure that one out. He doesn't always remember. He doesn't always get it right.
That's okay.
Grimmjow blinks again. Ichigo sees the moment his hands and arms and face start to get cold outside of the spray, because he shudders and folds himself back in. Long, long arms curling.
"Whatever," he says, and sinks back into the heat. Shuts his eyes. Just like that, he's gone.
Ichigo wonders if he knows what a capybara is.
He smiles where Grimmjow can't see it and slinks out of the bathroom, closes the door quietly behind him. The sound of the shower is loud enough to drone over the rain. It’s nice. Nicer. Ichigo’s glad for it, is all.
He wanders into the living room and falls onto the couch. He’s been doing his homework here and some of his books are scattered around. He has a lot to get through before Monday. Might take a couple late nights. He thinks about working on his French stuff, maybe his English, but it drags. His mind is bleary. Tomorrow. He'll work on it tomorrow. And he'll wrangle Grimmjow's help, too, if he's staying.
Practicing his languages on Grimmjow is fun and confusing and a little bizarre. He speaks a lot of them — all the ones Ichigo's interested in — but he doesn't operate like a human does. Doesn't navigate the same way. It's just talking. He doesn't have to think about it. Ichigo speaks French at him and he speaks it back, but he doesn't know he's speaking French. Then Ichigo pulls him back to Japanese and he doesn't know he's speaking that, either. Not consciously. Code-switching on steroids. It's fascinating. Ichigo has to wonder what he sounds like to Grimmjow's ears when he stumbles, when he gets things wrong. And which of those many, many languages were his first ones. Which of them he brought through every evolution, from the very beginning. Which of them were tacked on later, absorbed.
Ahh, shit. He wishes he could hear accents. He's still got so much learning to do.
But for now he can just hear the shower, the water in the pipes, and the cold rain is far away. He sighs big and spreads out, kicks his feet up. Tea and a book, right, but he doesn't want to get up. He reaches down to the floor and feels around for the novel he's been neglecting. Good and easy leisure reading. Just for a little while. He cracks the spine and bends his arm behind his head.
He reads.
He reads...
And then he halfway-wakes to the shift of the couch cushions beneath him, pitting and dipping, with his eyes still closed and the world nice and dark. He feels his book slip out of his hands, paper gliding soft against his callouses. No urgency. Groggy, easy to slip back under...
Grimmjow drops on him.
Ichigo grunts. Stretches it into a groan when Grimmjow squirms around. He's so elbowy and his hip bones crunch and pinch and against Ichigo's, and he's heavy, and Ichigo grabs blind for his waist and sighs his whole sleepy soul into: "Why."
Grimmjow arms slide under Ichigo's shoulders and he shifts down a little, bullies Ichigo's legs around with his knees. "Shut up. You're annoying."
"You're long," Ichigo mumbles back. He presses his palm between Grimmjow's shoulder blades and swipes it down his spine. Down, down, skimming his void, all the way to his ass. "Long."
Grimmjow doesn't say anything to that. The soft cotton under Ichigo’s hand wakes him up a little. He’s wearing the clothes Ichigo left him. Dry but radiating heat from the shower. Ichigo slips his hand under the hem of the shirt and feels the muscles flutter — feels them go still and soft when Grimmjow finally finds his spot.
He settles down in an even press, dense enough over Ichigo’s chest and stomach that it’s a little hard to breathe. Ichigo likes that. Grounding, pulls him into the in-out of his own air. Ichigo likes the big rumble that comes out of him too. More feel than sound.
Grimmjow puts his head down, fits it snug under Ichigo’s jaw. His hair is very, very wet. Ichigo likes that a lot less.
He peeks an eye open and finds it still light enough to be day. He couldn’t have been asleep very long. He rolls his head back against the armrest, stretches his neck. Says, “It’s still raining.”
“Yeah.”
"I don't like the rain."
"Got that."
“You don’t like it either.”
Grimmjow drags his maskless cheek against Ichigo's shoulder, his collarbone. Puffs air on his throat. Not a yes, not a no. Just saying hi.
"I think maybe I thought you would."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
"'S cold."
"Yeah. Sometimes. I guess I thought– There's no rain in your desert."
"Not a lot."
"But there is some?”
Grimmjow nods and then keeps nodding, lazy and slow to rub his scent into Ichigo’s hoodie. Jaw in circles. Pointy chin.
“I didn’t know that.”
Half-muffled: “You don’t know anything.”
Ichigo laughs. He feels for the off-texture of the 6 on Grimmjow’s back and digs his fingers into it. “But I want to. I wanna know the stuff. C’mon, what’s rain like in Hueco Mundo? I’ll even say please.”
“Say it then.”
“Please.”
Grimmjow sticks his nose into Ichigo’s jugular.
“Pretty please?”
Mouth opening and a wet scrape of teeth, but only for a second before Grimmjow pulls away and relaxes back down. Goes limp. Ichigo traces the hard lines of his Espada brand and waits for him to pick out his words.
"Sometimes," he says, down low and throaty and sleepy, "in the desert, all at once, it'll rain on you. Not in Los Noches. Happens when an evolution goes bad. Ever seen anything like that?”
“No.”
“Something gets fucked up. Destabilizes. Body tears apart. Somebody gets smart and takes a bite. It’s not bad eating: you think you can take it, get your teeth in fast. Makes it all tangle on itself. A big enough Hollow, strong enough, and it bursts just as big. All energy. Like a bomb, like–" His hand comes up and goes boom, and he mumbles a noise with more quiet growl than Ichigo’s heard in a while. Then his hand flops back down and hangs off the edge of the couch. “And it’s all gotta go somewhere.”
“So it goes up?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“And then comes back down?”
“Yeah."
“Not as water, then.”
“Not water. Still rain. Comes down stinging, damn loud. Eats like acid."
"Eats?"
"Eats you. Melts you. Sizzles your meat off."
"Oh," Ichigo says. Makes sense, he thinks, for such a pretty place to be so hostile. Pouring raw energy down as rain. Nothing wasted. Ichigo wonders if Grimmjow thought he'd melt the first time he saw rain in Ichigo's world. "How do you get out of it?"
"Burrow in the sand. Get under somebody bigger than you."
"Hm." Ichigo pets back up Grimmjow's spine under his shirt, then does it again on top of it. Ruffles his fingers into wet hair. It's gone kind of cold. He rests his cheek over his fingers, hugs Grimmjow's head to the curve of his neck and shoulder, and Grimmjow breathes deep and heavy like he does just before sleep. He's been trying to get there for a while. Ichigo won't keep it from him much longer. Grimmjow's hair sticks to his mouth when he asks, "How many rains have you seen?"
"Dunno," Grimmjow says back, barely there, "Just a few."
A few, but survived them all. Ichigo hums and lets his eyes close. Happy enough to go back there himself. He thinks faintly that neither of them is big enough to cover the other. It'd be stupid to try. They'd both end up bones. But the sand wouldn't be so bad. Might even be nice, he thinks, to cocoon down into the soft white sift. Barely breathing, close together and waiting and safe.
"Hey," Ichigo says, "I'm glad you like my shower."
Thunder rumbles, but so does Grimmjow. Louder. The rain goes on.