The man who hated tears

Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez really hated it when people cried. Not because he felt guilty or moved, or because he didn't know how to comfort those poor suffering souls, but rather because he found it incredibly annoying. All that wailing and sniffling and babbling, and the snot. Goddamnit the snot. People could be so terribly disgusting when they cried.

And so, he tried not to cringe and hid his deep discomfort when his current customer started clinging to his shirt (shit, he liked that shirt), sniffling and mumbling incomprehensible things against the fabric (which was now covered in snot, thank you very much.)

"Thdank dou dso much, Mr. Jnaedgerfaquez" the woman sniffled, her big blue eyes puffy and red from all that crying. "Now our family can go on with their lives."

Grimmjow looked away, hoping to get away from this crying mess of a woman soon so that he could get back home quickly. "No need to thank me, I just did my job, ma'am."

The woman cried harder and buried her face in his shirt, which was now ruined forever.

He really hated his job.

"I'm home!"

His call echoed against the walls of the spacious hall. He dumped his jacket in the nearest couch and took off his shoes (god forbid he dared step into the house wearing his shoes, he'd never hear the end of it) before walking to the living room, where a pair of unemotional green eyes lifted to meet him.

"Welcome home." The owner of said eyes replied to Grimmjow's earlier call nonchalantly, rising from his seat and moving towards him. "How was your day?"

The teal-haired male clicked his tongue in annoyance and continued walking through the room, hoping to get something to eat from the kitchen.

"Same old. Yanno' they call about some weird stuff going on, I go to the place and there's this sad and miserable ghost that has unsolved shit, then they solve the shit, there's the bright light, everyone fucking cries, the ghost moves on and their lives are better and wonderful and whatever. And they cry some more."

Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez liked to think of himself as a Ghost Hunter, but the sad truth, and he knew it, was that he was more of a Medium, which was corny and lame. He didn't hunt down monsters and kill blood hungry ghouls, he helped psychologically twisted ghosts to fix up "pending business" with their disoriented living families so that they could move on to the afterlife. Super lame.

He was not a gifted child like most Mediums and spiritually aware people were. In all truth, he had been a pretty normal kid who had dedicated his life to be normal and beat up those who were weaker than him. He had never seen a ghost until he was seventeen, when he was taking a walk with his mother and they were intercepted by a thief. It was all too quick and all Grimmjow knew was that he saw his mother get shot in front of his eyes. She would eventually come back to him as a ghost, trying to convince him that it had not been his fault, and that she would not be able to move on until she knew that he had forgiven himself.

Ever since, Grimmjow started seeing dead people everywhere (and no, he had not seen Bruce Willis, thank you very much). Soon he was contacted by a strange agency called Soul Burial, where they gathered odd people with similar abilities to do paranormal jobs. Grimmjow was wary at first, he didn't like the idea of doing that kind of weird jobs, but the pay was amazing, they paid for his transferral from his home in Fukuoka to a huge new house in Kyoto, where he was now living, and he hadn't had any plans as to what he wanted to do in the future (nor was he really capable to fit in any normal job anyway) so he decided to take it.

But all in all, he still hated the job. It was all about people crying all the time and being super melodramatic. He didn't give a damn about how tragic and sad their lives were, everyone had problems, so what. Move on and stop wasting his time.

He opened the fridge and took out some leftover pizza from yesterday, not bothering to put it in the microwave before biting down on it. He was starving!

"All that food you eat has no nutritional value. At this rate you will sooner or later develop one of those modern alimentary disorders like obesity or diabetes and die at a ridiculously young age."

Grimmjow snorted at his companion and his conservative ideas but smiled knowing that the statement hid the man's concern for him.

The sapphire-eyed Medium shared his home with his lover, Ulquiorra Cifer, a beautiful emerald-eyed man with pale skin and wild raven locks that framed his elegant face. He was the one thing that kept Grimmjow from going insane about all those crazy ghosts and weeping widows and whatnot. No matter how much snot he could gather in his clothes, Ulquiorra, would always be waiting for him at home, with a sarcastic response to whatever he said.

"How'bout you? Read anything interesting today?"

Ulquiorra passed him by, glancing at his not-so-edible-looking pizza with clear disgust and left the kitchen, with the blue-haired man following suit, his meal left forgotten.

"As a matter of fact, I did, but I doubt you would understand it even if I explained it to you."

Grimmjow frowned; in Ulquiorra-language, he had just been called an idiot. He sighed; even after all the years they had spent together, the green-eyed man was still as difficult as ever.

"C'mon, don't be like that. See, I've been workin' my ass off these days 'n my creepy boss gave me a little bonus, so I passed by the bookstore on my way here and got ya those books ya wanted." He smiled and picked up a bag he had left in the living room.

Ulquiorra's normally calm eyes widened the slightest bit when he peeked into the bag and a soft smile spread across his lips, though the words that left his mouth were as vicious as ever.

"I am sincerely surprised to know that you actually remembered the books I told you I wanted. Thank you, Grimmjow"

The tall blue-head ignored the snide remark and smiled as he watched the petite man stride away with the books. And then his face was overtaken with disgust when he remembered that his shirt had been smeered in snot merely two hours ago.

He should get a new job.

"There ya go Grimmy-chan, thanks fer yer hard work as always."

His obnoxious and creepy boss, Gin Ichimaru, handed him an envelope with the payment for his latest job: a young kid who had died in a car crash and wanted to talk to his mother before moving on.

"Say, how'd it go? Should've been easy, kids ain't as violent as other ghosts, right?"

Grimmjow clicked his tongue. The mother hadn't stopped crying for hours. She was crying when he got to the house, she cried when he told her the kid's message, she cried when the boy disappeared, and she kept crying and crying and crying. How he hated to be stuck with stupid fucking people that wouldn't stop crying for a second and wouldn't let him leave.

"Oy, ya sure I can't to do one of those Ghost Hunter jobs? Dealing with people is not my damn thing."

The silver-haired man snickered, covering his mouth with his oversized sleeves.

"Oh, I'm sure ye got tha instinct, but yer not like Nnoi-chan, ya can't pull guns 'n swords outta yer own flesh, can ya? 'Sides, I heard ya got a soft spot for spirits, ain't that right Grimmy-chan?"

Grimmjow's face darkened and he glared at the man, turning his back at him and slamming the door as he left.

If Grimmjow wanted to quit his job, it wasn't only because of the crying people (although it was a very important top in an imaginary list of reasons to do so). Of course his annoying boss was another important reason, but the thing he hated the most (asides from all those tears and snot) was the part about having to write reports every time he did a job explaining everyfuckingthing: from the ghost's identity and cause of death, the situation of the family before and after the demise, the reason for the ghost to linger on earth (the infamious 'pending business'), and a detailed description of how he had helped the ghost to move on. It was a fucking pain in the ass and Grimmjow hated it with a passion. He hadn't signed in to a supernatural job just to spend half of his afternoons with his ass in front of a computer typing reports.

"What is this one about?"

Ulquiorra would usually sit in the couch reading a book while Grimmjow wrote his reports. On rare occasions he would ask questions about Grimmjow's cases, though he would never ask too much, he was never too interested in them.

"A guy who killed himself 'cos the girl he loved got married to another dude. Then he couldn't find a way to move on 'cos he felt rejected and unloved and shit."

The blue-haired man glanced at his lover and saw him hugging his knees. He sighed and stood up from the computer, moving to sit next to him.

"Ghosts can be really eccentric, huh?"

The raven-haired man stayed quiet, simply scooting closer to his lover, but not enough to touch him, not noticing the sad smile that appeared on Grimmjow's lips.

"Fuck, damnit! Do I have a fucking 'Kleenex' sign on my shirt and I'm the only one not seeing it? Why must people always wipe their fucking snot on me?" Grimmjow took off his shirt and threw it away carelessly. Another useless shirt. "Hey, Ulquiorra, I'm home!" He called out, walking into the living room, where his lover could be usually found reading whatever book had caught his attention.

Except that Ulquiorra was not there today.

Grimmjow went to Ulquiorra's room, but the green-eyed man wasn't there either. It was unusual for him to disappear like this, and though Grimmjow wasn't really worried, he was a bit unsettled.

He finally concluded that Ulquiorra might just be in a bad mood and didn't want to talk to him, so he'd just give him some space. His lover had seemed particularly worried and thoughtful recently, though Grimmjow didn't know why, and knowing Ulquiorra, he had found it more sensible to just wait for the man to talk to him about it when he felt like it. Pushing Ulquiorra had never resulted in anything positive, anyway. With this in mind, he walked into his room to put on a clean shirt, and was surprised to find his raven-haired lover sitting on his bed with a serious look on his face.

"Grimmjow, there is something I need to tell you." He started, a shadow of doubt crossing his emerald eyes. His hands tightened into fists and he kept his gaze fixed on Grimmjow's blue eyes. "Grimmjow it is time… I… I want to move on."

It had seemed too sweet a deal. A big salary, a transferal to a big city, and a new traditional Japanese house for himself, and he wouldn't have to pay a damn thing. There had to be a catch to it, that's what Grimmjow thought when the Soul Burial Agency offered him a job and a new home in Kyoto five years ago. And of course there had been a catch. That being that the house he had been granted with was already inhabited. And its occupant didn't take it kindly to have intruders in his property.

This occupant was not your everyday tenant, but the ghost of a young European prince from the Eighteenth Century, whose ship had somehow been wrecked and reached Japan (the ghost's memories were a bit jumbled, so he didn't quite remember the details). This ghost's name was Ulquiorra Cifer.

It's not common knowledge among amateur Mediums, since most ghosts are 'dispatched' soon after their deaths, but when a spirit spends a long time wandering among the living, unable to move on, it starts gathering spiritual energy, and gains the ability to manifest itself to living humans, be it through sound, or by touching and moving objects. The older the spirit, the stronger it becomes. 'Haunted houses' are usually inhabited by ancient spirits that have been chained to this world for various centuries and have become able to move huge objects with the sole power of their minds.

When Grimmjow met Ulquiorra he knew nothing of this, and thus had to learn it the hard way. And since Ulquiorra had been haunting this house for nearly three hundred years, he was more than capable of shutting the door in Grimmjow's face, or going into his room and throwing all his clothes out of the window if he dared get into the house with his shoes on.

Yes, Ulquiorra was a hard spirit to live with.

At first, Grimmjow had tried what any normal person would. Since he was part of an Agency that specialized in the supernatural, he called an agent that was supposed to be a top-class exorcist, but the guy told him that this ghost needed no exorcism, that it was just a normal ghost (a bit too territorial, yes, but otherwise normal) and the only way to get rid of him was to help him move on.

And so Grimmjow tried to help the ghost to move on, but it was more of a pointless waste of time. Grimmjow had just been introduced to this supernatural world, he hardly knew how to deal with these things. And Ulquiorra was not really willing to cooperate.

Grimmjow's nerves were on the brink of collapsing when one day he came home from one of his first jobs and he found Ulquiorra calmly sitting on his living room, flipping through the pages of one of his mother's favorite books.

"With your primitive manners, I never expected you to have any refinement in your literary tastes." He had said casually.

The sapphire-eyed man scowled, because he knew he had just been called monkey or something like that. Not that it was anything new.

"'S not mine, it was mom's. Ya can have it if ya want it. Actually ya can keep all the books in the house, as long as ya stop bein' a bitch."

Ulquiorra quirked an elegant eyebrow and he shut the book, apparently considering the offer for a few seconds.

"Fine. But you will not get into the house with your shoes on. The town has become so dirty and polluted with all those new and modern technologies..."

"Yeah, yeah. Deal, whatever."

After the hostilities were over, their 'relationship' became one of mutual tolerance and cordiality. Grimmjow would respect Ulquiorra's space and Ulquiorra wouldn't attack Grimmjow. If they ever ran into each other in the living room or the hallways, they acknowledged the other's presence with a court nod and nothing else.

Sometimes, when the blue-haired Medium came back from work, the raven-haired ghost would ask him about his job and the spirits that he helped. Grimmjow couldn't be sure of it, but sometimes he thought he saw some longing in those emerald eyes when he told him about how those poor lost souls had found peace when the shining light had appeared before them.

Grimmjow himself inadvertently started to take some interest in Ulquiorra. He would sit with him in the living room and ask him about his life, about the world three hundred years ago, about how he had seen it change. Sometimes, the emerald-eyed prince would feel flattered at being consulted, and was quite willing to tell any story that Grimmjow wanted to hear (after all, he'd had no one to talk to for the past three centuries). Other times though, he would show a nostalgic look on his face, and then Grimmjow would know that he was feeling lonely, and that all those years of solitude weighed on his shoulders much more than he would ever admit.

By the time Grimmjow thought that maybe, just maybe, Ulquiorra might have wanted to move on instead of staying trapped in this house which he was unable to leave, he also realized that he was kind of in love with Ulquiorra, and that he didn't want him to disappear. And for a moment he decided to ignore that the man was dead and that he couldn't even touch him (perhaps if he stayed in this world for another century or two he would have enough spiritual energy to be able to touch other living creatures), because he actually loved him and he didn't know why.

And so, when he told Ulquiorra something along the lines of 'Y'know y're pretty cute and y're not so awful to be around, and what I'm tryin' t'say is…"; Ulquiorra's lips curled in a tiny, barely noticeable smile, and cut him off with a "Yes, I understand."

And Grimmjow smiled.

"Wait, what?"

Grimmjow wanted to believe he had misheard. Ulquiorra couldn't possibly have said-

"I want… no, I have to move on, Grimmjow."

And when Grimmjow finally understood that he had not misheard, that it was not a joke, and it was most certainly not a dream, all he could muster was a single word.

"Why?"

Ulquiorra looked at him sadly and glided across the room until he was standing in front of him. When they were standing face to face, the ghost rose his hand and reached for Grimmjow's own until his pale delicate fingers laced softly with the taller man's. Grimmjow's breathe hitched and his heart skipped a beat.

Even if they had been together for nearly four years, Ulquiorra had never touched Grimmjow, and there was a reason for that. Although he was such an ancient ghost, and he could hold books, lift heavy objects and slam doors, his touch could never reach his lover. His hand went straight through the man's skin, his fingers unable to really hold Grimmjow's. Yet he kept his hand there, his ghostly fingers touching –but not really touching- his lover's, his eyes reflecting the sadness and loneliness he had been carrying all along.

Grimmjow suppressed a shiver and stared at their entwined hands. He had always, always hated it when ghosts touched him. In his own words, it felt as if death itself was touching him. A cold chill went through his whole body, reaching down to his bones, and at the same time, it choked him and made him feel covered in a fine layer of loneliness and cold pain.

And yet, even though he was feeling despair and solitude choking him and freezing every inch of his body, he didn't move his hand away from Ulquiorra's terrifying and painful touch, but rather attempted to squeeze the ghostly hand, even if the only thing he could feel was nothingness and yet more cold and deathly solitude.

"Grimmjow, we both knew this day would come. I have been in this world far too long. I am… exhausted. This… pretention of a life, this existance that is neither alive, neither dead, I can not bear with it anymore. I have seen so many ages pass before my eyes, with only silence and walls to keep me company. I have watched people walk by, they come and go, they are born and they die, and they move on, they make war on each other, they create things, they move forward, they destroy what they created. Everything around me grows, changes and eventually disappears. Only I linger."

The small body shook slightly, but the man's emerald eyes never left Grimmjow's.

"I am being selfish now, I am aware. Since you came to this place, the silence was filled with noise and my days stopped being meaningless and lonely. But you are alive, and just like everything else, there will come a day in which you will leave me behind too. I am used to your company, to the warmth of your presence, I could never go back to those silent, lonely days. That's why I… I need to move on now that I can take that warmth with me as a final memory."

Grimmjow's face darkened and he bit his lower lip so hard he bled. His eyes were fixed in Ulquiorra's, his hand was laced in his lover's ghostly touch. His mind was racing a mile a minute, trying to figure out something to say, but no words would come out of his mouth.

"You know, Grimmjow, I always thought there was a reason for us to meet. Even if you are… well, you. I never thought it would come to this, to what we are now. But for whatever reason, you are, after all, the only person who can help me to make my wish come true. I have waited for so many years in this silent house, and you were the first one who dared cross that door. Please…"

Grimmjow hated this. He hated it in so many ways. The sad expression in Ulquiorra's face, and that someone like him, like Ulquiorra fucking Cifer was fucking begging him… it was wrong in so many levels.

"Fine, I'll help ya. But ya gotta know, Ulquiorra, that I'm not doing this cos ya ask me or any shit like that…"

His throat went dry and his heart seemed to stop beating as he squeezed the prince's hand tighter. The coldness and loneliness felt heavier.

"I'm only doing this because I love you."

Ulquiorra smiled as the room was enveloped with a blinding white light.

Grimmjow's eyes itched for unknown reasons. He had seen this a million times before, yet he couldn't come to terms with the fact that Ulquiorra's body was starting to fade away. He wanted to scream, to yell, to stop everything, to shut that bright ugly light that was taking his most precious person away from him. Ulquiorra said nothing, he simply looked at him with a small, yet tender smile on his face. Before he disappeared completely, Grimmjow felt a pair of warm lips brush his own.

"I love you too."

And then all the emerald was gone and the light disappeared.

All there was left was darkness and silence.

"Oy! Ya gotta wait for me, asshole! I'm comin' after ya someday!" he yelled angrily at the nothingness in the room.

A faint sob could be heard somewhere in the room. Who the fuck was crying? Grimmjow's cheeks were wet. Was it raining? Inside? The sobs became louder. His eyes were stinging and whatever it was that was running down his face had started to fall to the floor in small drops. One at a time. Drop by drop. Whoever was crying, could they please shut the fuck up? Even at a time like this, why did he have to put up with stupid crying people? His eyes hurt so badly, and no matter how many times he wiped his face, it got wet again. This was so messed up.

Wanting to be loved at least once? That's such a stupid pending business, you idiot.

Please, whoever it is, stop crying already.

END

I wrote this nearly two years ago –holy crap-, for the GrimmUlqui fanbook coordinated by Dior Crystal and Ravefirell, and for whatever reason, had decided to keep it under my sleeve for a special occasion –like Grimmjow's return or something

Since I'm sick of waiting and I just want to publish it already, well, there it goes.

I've had the idea of a ghoststory in my head since someone requested one for a Valentine's exchange (though I failed at the time). I imagined Grimmjow in a Ghostbuster outfit and thought he'd look hot (even if he doesn't wear one here –fail)

I hope everyone likes it, and I seriously hope I get out of this writer's block soon, I have a shitload of half-baked stories that I'm unable to write for no reason.

Also, thanks to TokyoKitty for beta-reading this, she always put up with my crappy and ridiculous demands and my never-being-on-time shit, so I'm very grateful for her help with this.