Grimmjow walked through the halls of Las Noches, one hand resting on the hilt of his zanpakuto and the other in his pocket. This was not one of his usual strolls that had no destination, no, he knew exactly where he was heading. Several days ago Aizen had held a meeting in order to inform the espada that Ulquiorra had captured that damned orange headed shinigami and he was currently being held captive in a room that all arrancar and espada had access to. Grimmjow would've shown up sooner to give the bastard a piece of his mind but in that same meeting Aizen had given him a ridiculous mission he had to start immediately. It was his first day back and his first priority was finding the shinigami and sucker punching him. Naturally Grimmjow had assumed Aizen gave everyone access to the room in order to beat the shit out of the overly confident bastard, however when he arrived in the room he discovered that there was a very different reason.

The room was dark and slightly chilly, empty aside from the shinigami that hung, chained, smack in the center of the room. Four long chains hung from the ceiling and attached to the teens wrists and ankles. As Grimmjow continued to walk closer he cringed. The boy had no head support, so that now damp, greasy head of orange hair hung at an extremely uncomfortable looking angle, his whole face red and his cheeks covered in dark bruises. He hung at an average person's hip level, although Grimmjow would've had to lift him slightly to get him to his hip level. Grimmjow wouldn't have wished this on even the stubborned shinigami. The teen was completely naked and covered, absolutely covered, in bodily fluids, some dried and crusted on his body. Blood was dried around his mouth and lower regions.

The chains jingled slightly as the other finally seemed to notice Grimmjow's presence, dull brown eyes slowly made their way to meet glowing cyan ones. He couldn't take it. He shouldn't care, in fact should've enjoyed the fact that the shinigami was suffering, but he couldn't. Grimmjow slowly unsheathed his zanpakuto and began to raise it, stopping only when the smallest of smiles appeared on the teen's dried lips. He spoke quietly, voice hoarse, from screaming or misuse Grimmjow couldn't tell.

"Please. Please, Grimmjow. Kill me."

Grimmjow cringed yet again, never thinking he'd see the day this stubborn spitfire would beg for death by his hand. He walked closer until the boy was within arms reach and raised his zanpakuto, slicing it through the air and moving quickly to catch the boy in his arms.

"W-why? Why didn't you kill me? Please, Grimmjow. I'm useless, I can't fight you."

"Shut up, we're going to my quarters and getting you cleaned up and then we're gunna work this out. So shut up, I don't want to hear another word."

The other wasn't in much of a state to argue, so he merely laid his head on Grimmjow's warm chest, glad to be out of those chains and out of that room.

--

Grimmjow had brought Ichigo to his personal bath and set the boy down on a bench that was submerged in the warm water. The other grimaced and whined slightly but soon relaxed as much as possible into the water.

"Kurosaki, your arms and legs are popped out of their sockets, I'm going to pop them back in but its gunna hurt like hell, ok?"

When he received a nod Grimmjow moved closer to the shinigami and corrected the boy's left arm first, only receiving a sharp inhale in response. He looked up to see that Kurosaki had his lips tucked tightly between his teeth and his eyelids screwed shut. He gave the boys arm a light squeeze before continuing to the next limb.

Once he finished he set out to wash the grime from the smaller body before him. He gently cleaned him with a cloth, Ichigo's eyes closed in what seemed to be content. After cleaning all reachable spots Grimmjow stood Ichigo up off the bench, keeping one hand on the boy's hip to keep him up. He slowly moved around to the back of him and began trying to clean up his legs and the in between, but Ichigo jumped and jolted out of his grip, causing him to fall into the water. Grimmjow quickly scrambled to get his head out of the water while the boy frantically shook his head and chanted 'no, please no' over and over.

"Hey, hey, kid, I ain't gunna touch ya like that, I'm just tryna get ya clean. Alright?"

He was crying now, still chanting his mantra, probably not even hearing Grimmjow, so the taller male grabbed his face and forced him to look him in the eyes.

"Kid, I know ya just been through hell, I know ya ain't got a damn reason to trust any one of the people here, 'specially me considerin tha amount of times I tried to end ya, but that's besides the point. I'm here to help you, I ain't gunna hurt ya and I ain't gunna let anyone else hurt ya either, so trust me, ok?"

It took a moment, but Ichigo slowly nodded and allowed Grimmjow to proceed with little complaint.

XXX

Grimmjow had noticed how skinny the teen was in the bath and decided to voice a concern he had.

"Did they feed ya anything while they had ya in there?"

"Please..please don't talk about it. That room."

Grimmjow was currently sitting on his bed behind Ichigo, who was sitting on the edge, drying his hair after having pried the rest of the chains off of the teen's wrist and ankles and bandaging the chaffed skin.

"Alright, I won't, but answer my question."

"They didn't."

Grimmjow sighed and shook his head. This was a weak, cowardly way to torture the teen, anyone with even half a ball sack wouldn't do it this way.

"I'll leave some of my clothes out for you and you can get dressed while I go get you some food."

Ichigo stiffened and flung himself around to face Grimmjow, legs locking around his waist and arms latched around his neck in as much of a death grip as he could manage.

"No. Please don't leave me by myself. They'll find me and put me back there."

"No one's gunna come near you, I'll leave a barrier on the door and have some of my fraccion come in here with you. They won't hurt you, they're too loyal to me to disobey. I'll be back soon, ok?"

Ichigo tightened his grip and nodded slowly.

"Alright, I'll have Shawlong and Yllfort come in here while I'm gone. I don't have any clothes small enough for you so I'll see if I can sneak into one of the other espada's rooms and get you some clothes while I'm at it, for now just wrap yourself in the sheets ok? I'll be back quick."

Ichigo nodded again and layed down on Grimmjow's surprisingly soft and rather large bed and cocooned himself in the warm black blackets. Grimmjow ruffled his hair gently before getting up to leave the room.

Soon after he left two men walked into the room and introduced themselves as Grimmjow's fraccion. The man with darker hair, Shawlong, somewhat reminded Ichigo of Chad, a friendly giant, though he wasn't built like Chad, just rather tall, and only made light conversation when he was spoken to. Yllfort was more chatty, but pleasantly so. He sat on the bed with Ichigo, though not before asking, and soon ended up laying behind Ichigo outside of the covers and stroking his hair gently, though again, not before asking, and Shawlong soon joined them on the bed, sitting in front of Ichigo leaning against the headboard. Ichigo welcomed the gentle touches and gestures, soon finding himself comforted and safe enough to fall into a much need rest.