A lot of people said Ichimaru was a snake. Ichimaru the captain, Ichimaru the smile, Ichimaru the snake. Abarai had warned him, Shu-hei had warned him, Matsumoto had even warned him, and Matsumoto was his friend.

But for all the warnings, the whispered words, the careful glances, Ichimaru was not a snake. Ichimaru was not a flower either, or a dove. If Ichimaru was anything at all, he'd be a disease.

Kira took his first dose the first time he met Ichimaru, settled on his knees before him in a simple little office that smelled like Ichimaru had never been there, because the room was scented with cedar, straw, and fresh paint. Ichimaru smells like jasmine, a little sweet, too sickly sweet. It makes you choke on the intake, hold, heady as a mouthful of warm sake. Hold, gasp, drown in it, drown in that smile, and the jasmine, and let go. Let it all go and fall into those waiting arms and that waiting smile.

That smile, the breath behind it and the quick tongue was as sickly sweet as the opium that was passed to him in a little glass pipe the first night they spent together. The smoke was as warm as Ichimaru's breath, and the chill that slid down his back and settled quivering in his gut was as cool as Ichimaru's lips.

Though he was still not a snake. He is toxic, and beautiful, and deadly. His smile makes Kira cry, his fingers make Kira cry, and that cock, that beautiful cock that fills him so slick and full and imperfectly makes him cry. Though he still needs more, because it is still only just enough. He is a kitten, born and raised on the vicious fluid that he sucked dry on so many accounts, on the words that were fed in hushed whispers in his ear, on the fingers that clawed, tore, and caressed.

Ichimaru is beautiful. He's everything Kira hates, wants, needs, yearns for, dies for. He knew he was dependant on Ichimaru a little too late, treated the situation with a sad smile. It's not like Ichimaru's smile. He's not even sure what that looks like anymore, because Ichimaru was always smiling, and yet it was never his smile. It was Aizen's smile, it was the mask Aizen gave him, it was something, and all those things, but it was not Ichimaru's.

Sometimes Kira wished he could see Ichimaru smile. Sometimes he wished Ichimaru wasn't so perfectly imperfect, so that he could untangle himself from the web he's conjured, live without the drug, live without the disease.

But he never could. When his resolve slipped, when his loyalty wavered like a flame, uncertain of which way the wind blew it, Ichimaru was there.

He was there with tongue and teeth and words. He was there to tie Kira up, bind him from escape; he was there with a breath he forced into Kira's lungs. Was that jasmine, or the rotting fruit of opium that made his limbs numb and fall heavy? The hand at his throat, the fist in his hair, the breath. Shaky in, steady out, in, out, as quick or as slow as the rhythm of the thrusts. Ichimaru would get off first; spill himself over Kira before he let his lieutenant go. In the end, it would be Kira's own come that slid down between him, pearly white against the flushed ring of muscle, still distended from the imprint Ichimaru's cock had made there moments before. Ichimaru made many imprints.

Ichimaru was a disease, a drug. He was a needed substance that choked so gently it could be a loving caress, a loyalty and a bittersweet means to an end. He was the scent of jasmine that lodged into the back of the throat and no amount of bile could dislodge it. But Ichimaru was not a snake. He was not a snake that first night Kira met him, or the first night he let Ichimaru touch him, or the first night they fucked. He was not a snake the first night Kira begged him to fuck him, fill him, he was not a snake the last night Kira begged him to fuck him and fill him. Ichimaru was Kira's disease.