Pairing: Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez x Ichigo Kurosaki

Music: Karma Slave, by Splashdown

Word count: ~ 3400

Rating: T

A/N: Italicized lines belong to Shakespeare. I'm borrowing them, because he is an absolute genius, and it's my favorite play of all time.

Note: Beta-read by the lovely XIce-and-SnowX on 8/1/12

Prompt 22: Crumble

Sometimes the days felt endless. Even more often, the hours did, crawling by with a slowness that was agonizing to the point of tears. Ichigo felt it, that dull, burning pain that throbbed in time with his heart—all the more so at night, when the rest of the world drew back behind the safety of locked doors and shuttered windows. Nights like this, when even the moon vanished, were all but unbearable.

Soft footsteps sounded in the otherwise empty room as Rukia approached the window ledge thatIchigo was seated on. She paused behind him, and he could all but feel the tension and concern in her small frame.

After an endless moment of silence, she asked softly, "What will you do now?"

Ichigo looked out over the lights of the city spread out below his perch, just inches away from a thirty-story drop. Across the busy street, the windows of a hospital glowed bleakly, figures passing to and fro behind the lighted squares. In one of those rooms, on one of those floors, within one of those sterile, empty wards, he had finally returned.

"Now?" he repeated softly, and the word was bitter, and sweet, and full of longing, and full of apprehension, terrified and hopeful and sure and uncertain all at once. The orange-haired man laughed, and it emerged like a strangled, choking sob. "I'll watch his first breath. I'll be there for his first word, his first step and his first smile. I'll be watching on his first day of school, his first crush, and his first kiss. Whenever he's happy, or sad, hurt or at peace; whenever he falls in love or gets his heart broken, I'll be just a few steps behind him, watching everything. Isn't that all I can do anyway?"

"Oh, Ichigo," Rukia whispered, wrapping her arms around his neck and resting her head against his shoulder. "You know that our lord would let you go if you asked him. He's been worried about you. If you wanted to just… go to sleep, and not have to worry any more, that would be all right. All we want is for you to be happy."

Ichigo ran his fingers through her short, dark hair and then shifted over, pulling her up to sit next to him on the window ledge. "I know, Rukia. But I can't. I love him, and all I want is to stay with him, even if he never knows I exist."

Rukia sighed and settled up beside him, tangling their fingers together where they rested on his stomach, and together they watched the night head towards morning in silence.

The others found them there, trickling in through the door one at a time. Shuuhei was first, and dropped to the floor beneath the window with a soft exhalation ofbreath. He leaned his head back against the wall but didn't speak, his silence saying more than words ever could. After him came Harribel, a stern, straight shadow who kissed Ichigo on the forehead with all the warmth of an adoring mother and leaned back against the molding, her arms folded under her breasts and a tight-lipped look of commiseration on her face.

Nnoitra followed a few minutes later, freakishly tall and skinny, and patted Ichigo on the head before going to sit on the room's single bed. Byakuya came too, and didn't even say anything about his sister being wrapped around Ichigo. Nel was more overt, kissing Ichigo's cheek and patting his shoulder before joining Shuuhei on the floor. Starrk slid through the doorway after a little bit; doing the same and then settling on Shuuhei's other side. Even Ulquiorra came, slouching back against the wall in one corner of the room and offering Ichigo a comforting glance before returning to his silent contemplation.

For a long, endless moment, the silence in the room was like a living, breathing, pulsing thing.

Then an infant's cry shattered it into a thousand bits.

Ichigo closed his eyes as though in pain, bowing his head and Rukia tightened her arms around him. Harribel flinched and her expression tightened even more, while Shuuhei sighed and ran his fingers through his spiky black hair. Byakuya touched Ichigo's shoulder and seemed to be about to speak, but simply placed his other hand on Ichigo's arm. Nel's expression was grim, Starrk mirroring her. Ulquiorra ended his meditation with a soft, weary sigh, closing his own eyes and shaking his head. Even Nnoitra looked glum.

"So it starts again," whispered the tall, regal man in the doorway, sliding his glasses off as if in mourning and bowing his head, brown hair falling into his eyes.

Ichigo nodded slightly, looking out the window and towards the hospital again, where a newborn baby with a fluff of blue hair had just witnessed his first sunrise.

"Yes," he said in quiet agreement, and there was equally quiet agony in his voice. "It does."

"Still sulking?" Shuuhei asked, sliding onto the bench beside Ichigo.

The redhead cast him a withering look, then returned to his book. "I'm not sulking. I'm just worried. He's only seventeen, and they're sending him off alone? It's not right."

Looking amused, Shuuhei crossed his arms over his chest and surveyed the blue-haired teenager bidding farewell to his parents at the entrance to security. "And how long has it been since you were seventeen, Ichi?"

Without glancing up, Ichigo turned a page. His lips were pressed into a tight scowl, and his grip on the leather-bound spine was deliberately careful. "Fuck you, Shu," he growled, slouching slightly in his seat. "I'd tell you, but you can't count that high anyway—last time I checked, 'ten' was still giving you trouble."

Shuuhei's eyes narrowed, a frown crossing his face. "Careful, bastard. I didn't have to come and comfort you. I'm doing this out of the goodness of my heart."

Ichigo muttered something that might have been "What heart?" and kept reading.

The humor finally faded from Shuuhei's grey eyes, and he scowled as well. "Fuck you, Ichigo," he retorted sharply. "We're worried about you. If you don't shape up soon, Harribel is gonna come kick you out of this funk, and she won't be as nice about it as me."

That just got him a politely raised eyebrow in reply, and Ichigo kept his gaze fixed firmly on his book.

"Ichigo—" Shuuhei growled, working up a nice head of steam for his next rant.

Hearing the very real warning in his voice, Ichigo sighed and finally looked up, meeting the other's irate grey gaze. His own topaz eyes were weary.

"It's…not like that," he said slowly, turning away to look back at the blue-haired boy striding through the airport towards the flight monitor. "I'm not sulking, or moping. Not really. Maybe I'm just…tired. It's been a long time, watching him grow up, grow old, and then die, while I never change. His life is so short. Like…a few days of sunshine in the midst of an eternal storm." He sighed and raked his fingers through his orange hair. "I talked to Lord Aizen about…just going to sleep for a while."

Shuuhei blinked at him, momentarily at a loss for words, then slumped back in the seat. "You did?" He sounded shocked.

Ichigo gave him a wan smile, closing his book and setting it aside. "I know. I swore to Rukia that I would never do it, but…" He shrugged. "Starrk, Harribel, and Byakuya have agreed to take over watching him for me, whenever they can, and he's never actually needed me until the end of his life. And I'm tired, Shu." The smile became painful, and he leaned over, dropping his head against Shuuhei's shoulder. "I know it's pathetic, and selfish, but I just can't do this anymore."

With a soft sigh, Shuuhei placed a hand on the bowed head, running his fingers through the brilliant silken hair. "Oh, Ichi," he murmured. "You've been selfless for so long. It's all right to stop, even if it's just for a few years. We'll take care of everything for you."

A soft, muffled noise was Ichigo's only response as he dropped quickly into a restless sleep.

Shuuhei let out a long breath and leaned back on the bench, closing his eyes carding his fingers through Ichigo's hair. It wasn't fair, he thought grimly. It wasn't fair that all the rest of them were fine, able to live so easily no matter how many ages passed, while Ichigo, the youngest of them all, was trapped, incapable of moving forward, unable to change how things had been and recover the past. His control, his sanity, was crumbling, and soon it would be gone, like so much ash upon the wind.

And all because of a stupid mistake. We should have killed the bastard when we had the chance. Shuuhei felt a growl building in his throat at the thought, and pushed it away.

And then footsteps came to a halt in front of them, and Shuuhei opened his eyes to stare at the very subject of his thoughts—tall, broad, built like a brick shithouse, with a shock of sky-blue hair and sapphire eyes. Shuuhei felt his face settle into hard lines, and glared up at the seventeen-year-old.

"Yes?" he demanded with barely constrained venom.

The kid blinked at his tone, then jerked a thumb at Ichigo. "He all right?" he demanded gruffly. "Do you want me to get a doctor?"

Almost in spite of himself, Shuuhei looked down at his friend, and felt his face soften. He kissed the furrowed brow, faint frown present even in sleep, and smiled sadly. "No," he murmured after a moment, all but forgetting his audience. "He's not much longer for this world, but maybe after that, he'll finally be able to rest." He stroked Ichigo's hair, then whispered softly, "'Your daughter here the princes left for dead: let her awhile be secretly kept in, and publish it that she is dead indeed; maintain a mourning ostentation, and on your family's old monument hang mournful epitaphs and do all rites that appertain unto a burial'."

Ichigo stirred in his grip, and returned, "'What shall become of this? What will this do?'"

Chuckling, Shuuhei shook his head and then looked back up at the confused teenager, and his expression was resigned. "Go, kid," he ordered. "You'll miss your flight."

The blue-haired teen hesitated for a moment, and then turned and stalked away, looking for all the world like an offended cat told off for being friendly. Shuuhei watching him go and chuckled softly again, tilting his head back to stare at the ceiling. "Here again, Grimm?" he asked, even though there was no one to hear him. He tightened his grip on the redhead in his arms, closing his eyes with an expression close to pain. "Maybe this time, things will be different. Maybe this time, you won't make the same mistake."

Even as he spoke the words, however, he couldn't bring himself to believe them.

Not after centuries of hoping the very same thing.

Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez paused at the edge of the boarding area for his flight and looked back. The strange, scarred man with spiky black hair still held the smaller, orange-haired man, but somehow, Grimmjow couldn't make himself think of it as sexual. They were intimate, definitely, but it seemed more like the intimacy of good friends, close family, rather than lovers. He's not much longer for this world, the dark-haired man had said. Did that mean the other was…dying? Yeah, he seemed pale and a little tired, but wouldn't Grimmjow be able to tell—able to see something—if he was really dying? It seemed wrong that someone could be so close to leaving the world entirely and that fact would hardly mark him at all.

He's not much longer for this world.

The thought repeated itself, pounding against the inside of Grimmjow's skull, and he winced, casting another quick glance behind him. The pair of men were still sitting there, the scarred one staring at the ceiling, the other curled against his chest as though exhausted.

He's not much longer for this world.

And then what he had said after—Grimmjow recognized those quotes, those lines, though he couldn't seem to recall where they came from. They were obviously well known to the pair, though, especially for the smaller man to be able to quote them in his sleep. Were they actors? Stage actors? Drama freaks?

The thing that puzzled Grimmjow most of all was why he felt like it mattered. The play was special, the orange-haired man was special, and Grimmjow knew he was forgetting something absolutely vital—even though he had never seen them before, didn't know them, wasn't supposed to care. There was no reason, absolutely none at all, why it should matter.

But it did.

When he looked back one last time, even as his section was called to board, the two men were gone.

That ached, just a little, no matter how much Grimmjow tried to deny it.

The heavy iron door swung shut, sealing the crypt where Ichigo now lay in a deathlike slumber, and Starrk gazed at it with unhappy grey-blue eyes.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this," he said quietly.

Nel took his hand, rubbing it soothingly between both of hers. "No," she agreed gently, "it wasn't. But they knew the consequences when they started this, and neither of them can go back now, no matter how much they might want to."

"They defied the Elders," Byakuya added, but instead of his normal dispassionate tone, he sounded defeated, as though watching an indomitable spirit like Ichigo's crumble under the weight of time was too much for him to bear. "Choosing to go against them, to try and leave the family—one had to fall, and one had to watch." He paused for a moment, and then slowly shook his head. "I could not say which would be worse."

Shuuhei shoved his hands deeper into his pockets, glaring angrily at the ground. "It's all that damn bastard's fault," he muttered darkly. "He was the one to convince Ichi to go through with it. Without him—"

"Ichigo would not be the person he is now," Ulquiorra cut in, habitually expressionless face for once touched with anger and sorrow. He turned stark green eyes towards the setting sun, and they narrowed slightly as he took in the figure standing at the edge of the graveyard. Nevertheless, he said without inflection, "Someday, Grimmjow will choose to remember him, and the curse will be broke. Perhaps soon. Perhaps not. All we can do is wait."

"Then we'll wait," Rukia decided firmly, taking her brother's hand and turning away from the tomb. "Wait for Ichigo to wake up, and for Grimmjow to pull his head out of the dirt and see what's actually going on. And then we'll beat both of them up for being such stubborn idiots."

Harribel took her other arm with a silent nod, and Nel released Starrk to grab a hold of Nnoitra, pulling her (moping) husband out of the graveyard. Shuuhei followed after a moment later, with one final glance back at the white marble crypt.

As the autumn wind rose, Aizen pulled up the collar of his long coat and sighed, then looked at Ulquiorra. "Shall we?" he asked, there was a note of wistful sadness on his face. "Ichigo will not be stirring any time soon, unless something changes drastically from the normal progression."

"It already has," Ulquiorra said in quiet monotone, staring at the figure silhouetted on the hill. All the same, he bowed to Aizen and walked away, leaving the lord to follow him with a soft sigh.

None of them looked back, so none of them saw the tall, blue-haired teenager approach the crypt with hesitant steps before squaring his shoulders and striding straight up to the door.

"I've been dreaming about you," Grimmjow said, and it was almost accusing. "I saw this, saw the whole thing. Why? What did you do to me?" He closed his eyes for a moment, then recited softly, "'I do love nothing in the world so well as you: is not that strange?' I used to say that to you, and you would laugh, and call it our play. Why…Why do I know that?"

Like a ghost, a pale form slipped through the heavy steel door and came to stand in front of him, reaching up to cup his jaw in one hand. "'As strange as the thing I know not. It were as possible for me to say I loved nothing so well as you: but believe me not; and yet I lie not; I confess nothing, nor I deny nothing.'" Then the orange-haired shade smiled, and whispered, "'Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.'"

"You've said that before," Grimmjow whispered back, feeling something swell and catch in his throat. "Whenever we fought, you would say that. But…"

With a small smile, the shade placed a nearly intangible finger against his lips and beckoned to him, then slipped back through the door.

Grimmjow took a breath and followed, hauling it open with a scream of protesting hinges. The ghost was waiting, perched on the edge of a black sarcophagus, and when he saw Grimmjow, he smiled again and fell through the lid, vanishing into the thing. Steeling himself, Grimmjow gritted his teeth and shoved the cover partway off, then leaned over.

The orange-haired man he had seen only once in real life—but so often in his dreams—lay within, eyes closed, face pale, not breathing, looking for all the world like any other corpse. But Grimmjow felt the draw, felt the need, and leaned over, pressing his lips ever so softly to the blue-white lips presented to him.

And as he did, he remembered.

Everything.

All of it.

He was whole again.

In the black sarcophagus, Ichigo—his Ichigo, who loved Shakespeare and hated rain, and cared for his family as though they were real family, and not the group he had been brought into by sheer chance—Ichigo opened his eyes, took a breath, and smiled at him.

"Grimm," he murmured, "I shall see thee, ere I die, look pale with love."

Grimmjow smiled back at him, knowing that this was an age-old game between them, to use the lines of that play—their play—whenever they could, and answered, "And thereupon I will kiss thee."

It was a kiss that bore the loneliness of their separation, and the joy of the return, and the regret for what had happened, and a thousand other small emotions. Ichigo broke from it with a soft gasp, letting Grimmjow pull him upright, and laughed softly. "You remember," he said with something like glee, or delight, or disbelief, and Grimmjow grinned back at him.

"I swore, didn't I?" he asked. "I told you that no matter how many times I was reborn, I'd find you someday. I know it's been a long time, but…can you still accept me?"

The wicked half-smile that he remembered so well resurfaced, and warm brown eyes sparkled at him. "Come, I will have thee; but, by this light, I take thee for pity."

Grimmjow laughed, because he couldn't remember the last time he had been so close to his lover, had seen that look in his eyes, had known that, despite their separation and ages apart, it was still Ichigo, the very same person he had fallen in love with so long ago. They had defied the Elders for each other, Ichigo for falling by love with a mortal, Grimmjow by convincing a Guardian of Death to run away with him into the human world.

"Peace! I will stop your mouth," he murmured, and kissed him.

Around them, the world stopped crumbling.

And so the curtain falls.

(On the first act, at the very least.)