Disclaimer: It pains me to admit this but no I do not own bleach.

Warning: Tweeny weeny lemon in this one folks, I mean seriously small-blink and you'll miss it.

Enjoy!

Frustration was no stranger to Ichigo. It had bled through his emotions across the years, every time someone took a swing at him for his hair, his sexuality. It had been hammered into him every time he was too weak to save someone, to stop their tears. But this, well this just took the freaking biscuit.

He'd checked. Checked again. And every time he looked he still had all the necessary parts to be a male, and yet it took just one bleeding cat to crush his male pride in seconds. His flat which he had slaved over for years had been sold, his furniture all gone without his knowledge, and now he was no better than a kept woman. Damn cat.

He watched with a sickening sense of defeat at the man's smirk as he flicked that, that thing towards him, and did the only thing he could think of. He snarled.

"Get that freaking thing away from me!" Aizen merely laughed off the red heads demands and instead trailed the thin strip of leather across the fuming boy's cheek, enjoying the shiver that it produced.

"Now, now Ichigo." He purred, "We both know that it's easier to just do as I say." He paused. Smirked. "Although it could be interesting to punish you for your disobedience." Ichigo gaped open-mouthed at the hybrid that was currently stretched out on to of him. With a feline grace Aizen ran his fingers softly up the boy's neck to curl around his chin and forced his mouth shut.

Just breathe, yeah now close your eyes and it'll just be a dream. Just a dream. Annoyed at the boy's attempted at ignoring him, Aizen nipped the soft skin of the throat laid before him in warning, smiling as Ichigo's breath hitched. Chuckling he let his breath fan over the face of the male below him, tracing the air around his features until resting just above the boy's lips. Slowly, ever so slowly, he felt the boy tremble and crumble. Ichigo may be stubborn but Aizen had long ago mastered the art of patience.

Wait...just about...ah. There. The deepening of the scowl, the slight pout and finally the lowering of the bright expressive eyes. Aizen smirked in victory. Ichigo watched on apprehensively as the leather trailed down from his cheek to his neck, narrowly stopping himself from crossing his eyes.

The leather strap lay loose on him as the hybrid slinked up his body to tower over him and, with a foreign gentleness, Aizen lifted up Ichigo's head from the pillows. Then with a small smile he clicked the strap into place.

Ichigo sighed.

The collar was already itchy.

Huffing for the gazillionth time that day, the orange haired male gazed own in defeat at the open text book in front of him. At the time it had seemed like a good idea; get out of the apartment, find a spot at campus, find coffee, revise. However, he was beginning to learn that plans aren't worth anything, not for him anyway.

Sure he'd gotten the coffee, found a place outside to sit (he'd spent far too long cooped up in that damn apartment) and had opened his books to begin. What he hadn't bargained on was the algebra dancing around the page hurting his head- he'd avoided taking English studies for a reason...Then there was the minute flinching every time someone walked past, his hands desperate to cover his neck that was already wrapped up in a very unseasonable scarf. But what he really hadn't thought of was that his bright hair, glistening in the sun, would act as a strong beacon to his friends who happened to be passing by, and now he was trapped.

Growling, he threw his text book down next to him, finally giving up on his fruitless effort- he'd just get it done later, maybe wait for Aizen to fall asleep. Ichigo let his body slowly let himself slowly relax against the tree trunk conveniently behind, enjoying the feeling of the tension draining away as he returned to join in with his friends that had camped beside him.

At the moment the loudest of them all, Renji, had his head thrown back with his equally bright hair spilling down his back, a barking laugh echoing deep from inside his chest. Rukia was giggling into her hand and Inoue sported a blush from the tip of her ears to lord knows where, while Ishida, portraying disinterest, was sneaking looks at Inoue, probably picturing where the blush did indeed end.

Next to Ichigo was Chad, silent and stoic as ever but if you knew where to look, the orange haired man knew, you could just see the corners of his mouth crinkling upwards and a lighter expression than normal. Ichigo didn't really understand when he described it as being lighter, it just fit really and his instincts were rarely wrong.

Furthest away from Ichigo was another feline hybrid, a natural fighter with the personality to match his cocky grin, but at odds with the bright blue tufts he had for ears. It had taken awhile for Grimm and Ichigo to finally put the gauntlets down but it had been worth the growing friendship-they had each others' backs. Although, Ichigo mused, Grimm's back probably belongs to Ulquiorra, especially if those looks those two are sharing are anything to go by. Ulquiorra was there with Grimm as always, but their lanky male friend Starkk was nowhere to be seen, most likely still in bed, and Nel was probably playing tag with the track team. She always won.

Trapped in his musings Ichigo failed to notice the laughter dying down and Renji's eyes boring a hole in his scarf in confusion and faint amusement.

"Oi, Ichi!"

"Huh? What?" Ichigo blinked as he resurfaced and turned to look towards the source of the shout. "Renji?"

Renji chuckled. "What's up with the scarf? Not hiding any love bites are me are ya?" He waggled his eyebrows at his friend who was now sporting a blush deeper than Inoue.

"I'm not hiding love bites Renji!" He answered truthfully. "My neck's cold is all." And so the lying begins. Yeah, he and Renji were close, but he really didn't want the other to know that he had been by his own damn cat.

Renji snorted and Rukia decided to pick up where her best friend had left off. "You're never cold Ichigo- not even in winter! And you don't like scarves either!"

"Jeez Rukia it's not like I can't have a change of opinion." He then shrugged his shoulders hoping they would drop it. He had no such luck as Grimm who, while he wouldn't harm Ichigo, loved teasing him and the hybrid could smell tease material room miles away.

"It might not be love bites but you're hiding something Berry. Now spill the beans before I get Nel on your case." Grimm's smirk tired to eat his face as he noticed Ichigo's eyes widen in anger over the nickname and pure, unadulterated fear over someone telling Nel. The girl just couldn't let things go.

Yet Ichigo stubbornly refused to do anything and soon the smirk was draining from the blue haired hybrid until he couldn't handle his curiosity anymore. In a blur of blue he pounced onto Ichigo and together they rolled on the grass, the others watching with raised eyebrows and laying bets. After a short struggle Grimmjow triumphantly raised the scarf above his head and Ishida actually smiled as he collected his winnings from his grumbling friends.

Grimm pushed his hand towards the smaller male beneath him but froze as he took in the sight of the secret the berry had tried so damn hard to keep a secret.

"Well damn Ichi, never figured you for the type." Ichigo merely groaned and looked away as his friends gathered around to stare at the simple yet elegant band adorning his neck, while he was still trapped beneath Grimm.

Most of the eyebrows present rose beyond their hairline and there were a few muffled giggles and coos, but Renji drew his eyebrows together in all seriousness.

"Anyway Kurosaki," Ishida input, "if you don't like it to the extent that you are forced to wear the scarves that you hate so much, why don't you just take it off?"

"Well, um,"

Grimm snorted. "Ain't it obvious? Berry here doesn't want to take it off, just doesn't want anyone else to see."

Ishida frowned at the blue haired man, and Ichigo lamented the fact that his legs were going numb because of said man's weight. "Since when were you such an expert?" Grimmjow let out more of a growl than a snort this time round, but was stopped from answering by the soft reply of Ulquiorra.

"He happens to know quite a bit, he grew up around collars." Ishida merely turned away with a huff, but not without sparing one last calculating look in Ichigo's direction.

"Grimm."

"Yeah Berry?"

"You're killing my legs."

"Oh." Chuckling to himself Grimmjow rolled himself off of Ichigo and instead laid down beside him. "But the glasses freak does kinda have a point, why don't you take it off?"

Ichigo shrugged, knowing that while the other couldn't see it, he could feel it. "Don't know how to get it off."

This seemed to be the last straw for the previously silent red head.

"It was him wasn't it? Aizen. God the nerve of that bastard! First he throws you out of the apartment and now this! This!" Renji gestured at the collar and slowly crawled forward to rest a hand on his friend's shoulder. "You don't have to put up with this, or anything Ichi. Not if you don't want it. I, we, can help. I even know a place where they re-home hybrids. Okay? Ichi?"

Closing his eyes Ichigo strove to find the answer. When he opened his eyes they could see the familiar conviction and strength.

He began, "I..."

Ichigo quietly let himself into the apartment and softly padded across the room towards the study. Aizen had implied that he was going out so the young male was looking forward to peace and quiet.

With a small thud the door closed behind him as he chucked his bags on to the bean bag that he had demanded. Well, if he was going to have to live in the apartment he was damn well going to have a say in the furniture. Aizen had sulked for a week, Ichigo recalled fondly, he'd enjoyed that week.

Chuckling to himself the young male failed to notice the raised goose bumps on his arm and the faint shivers that ran through him. Mistake number one. Swanning over to the desk in the pursuit of a decent pen, he plopped down into the chair and giggled (in a manly man manner) as it swung round. Mistake number two.

It came as a surprise then to Ichigo as the chair violently halted and he found himself boxed in by a pair of strong arms and equally strong chest. With a small squeak of surprise (maybe not so manly this time) Ichigo lifted his head to meet the deep brown eyes and raised eyebrow of his, erm, flatmate. Aizen's eyes never gave anything away but the eyebrow, well, that meant trouble and Ichigo had better start explaining.

"Umm hi. You're back. Early." The eyebrow got higher. "I mean I didn't think you would be back so I thought I'd do some work, because the professors are handing it out like there's no tomorrow but it's becoming hard to keep up with it all but I did do some work today but umm.." With an audible snap the orange-haired male stopped his babbling as the eyebrow disappeared into the other man's hair line and Aizen's nose twitched. Hang on. What?

Slowly but steadily the hybrid got closer to the trapped male and once again his nose twitched, almost imperceptibly.

"Aizen, wha-"

"Sosuke." He interrupted softly.

"Well Sosuke, are you smelling me?" This time in response to the question the eyebrow lowered right down and a warning growl issued in the back of the feline's throat.

"I'm afraid that's rather hard to do at the moment Ichigo with another hybrid's scent sprayed all over you." Not once did he raise his voice, but he didn't have to as Ichigo could feel the waves of irritation and anger rolling off him, almost suffocating the young male.

"We were just mucking around, he's a friend." Ichigo reasoned, trying to make the incensed hybrid see sense. "'Sides I think he's interested in Ulquiorra, and it seems like it's mutual, but I don't think anything's happened yet 'cos Grimm doesn't really like doing the talky bits and Ulquiorra likes to think he's above the baser human emotions so I.."

"You're babbling again."

Well. That was the last straw for the berry.

Grabbing onto the white tail flicking agitatedly near him, Ichigo yanked harshly and escaped from the chair a the brunet attended to his injuries.

"Why on Earth did you do that?" Sosuke practically hissed.

"No."

"No?" There went the eyebrow again.

"No, you do NOT get to be angry with me!" Sosuke frowned at the hurt and anger he sensed from Ichigo and the near-enough shouting but before he could get a word in edge ways Ichigo began again, speaking softly this time.

"You took my home away. You have a list of rules and I have to follow them as I don't have any where else to go unless I want to go back to my family and have a 10 hour commute to Uni every day. You always look down on me with that damn smirk or knowing eyes but you don't know bloody anything!"

Taking a breath to calm himself the young man turned his back on the hybrid who was soaking in his words.

"I never asked for this. It wasn't me who found you and brought you home. I had never even thought of getting a pet and if I had I would have gone for a bunny or something like that. Not you. I would never have chosen someone who can loom over you with barely a thought or could mess with your emotions with a flick of an ear. I certainly wouldn't have picked someone who likes to cuddle when we sleep and who only ever drinks tea if there's at least four teaspoons of sugar in it."

With his hand gripping to his hair Ichigo's ragged breathing tried to calm down before beginning again.

"My friends think I'm nuts. Why the hell would I want to stay with someone who had collared me? And what am I to tell them? Oh don't worry he just happens to be really possessive to the point he questions me about my damn smell! But it doesn't end there oh no. He has to buy a flat so I can be his live-in possession and my body's always covered in large red bites and he has to wrap a tail around me so I don't go anywhere! I mean, don't get me started about that damn tail. It always there, wrapped around my thigh, wrist and, and, anddowntherewhenwe'reonthebedbutnotsleeping ...oronanyavailablesurfaceanyway..."

A sigh. A slump of the shoulders. A tickle of breath on the neck. He struggled on in a soft voice.

"A friend of mine, Renji, thinks he can help me. Help me to get away from you and whatever it is that we have. He even offered to help get you re-adopted just so he could make sure I was ok."

A low growling noise rumbled next to his ear and slowly Ichigo turned to face him and look him squarely in the eye, taking in the flattened ears and the slight quiver of the upper lip.

"I said no."

Sosuke cocked his head in confusion. "What do you mean?"

"I said thanks but no thanks. That as crazy and as impossible as it sounds I'm happy, sort of, I suppose, it just takes some getting used to."

The next thing he knew he was crushed up against the older male's chest which was rumbling with what sounded suspiciously like purring. Burying his face into the crook of Sosuke's neck he finished his tirade with his eyes screwed shut.

"I wanna make this work. So you gotta let me in on the decision making."

He felt rather than saw the nodding. "And stop treating me as if you have to lock me up in a cage just so I can't leave you. Because I won't. Leave you that is. I can't 'cos I, I, I love you." He ended in barely a whisper yet the confession soaked there air between.

With a furry nudge to his chain Ichigo allowed the white tail to drag his head upwards to meet the soft lips of its owner. Its gentleness surprised Ichigo and the slight nips to his own lips had him melting against the hard body in front of him.

The tail then settled itself curled around the base of the Ichigo's neck, brushing against the delicate skin beneath the collar. It remained there even as the two broke off their kiss in order to breathe.

"You'll stay?" The vulnerability in his voice had Ichigo gasping in surprise.

"You won't be able to get rid of me."

The kiss this time was headier, heavier and devouring. In one smooth motion Ichigo found himself pressed between the hard lines of the desk and the equally hard lines of a very aroused hybrid, their lips never leaving the others. This lack of control and pure need pouring from Sosuke had the young male struggling against the buttons in front of him in his own need to feel skin.

Soon a few unfortunate buttons were sent flying throughout the room and hands met fiery skin and there was a deep growling next to Ichigo's ears that had his body thrumming.

"Want you." Ichi barely had time to register the husky tone before he was laid out on the desk and quick hands tugging at his clothes.

Clothes gave way to skin and skin was met by hands and hands were followed by teeth and tongue and tail. Down, down they went until Ichigo's body was a damned instrument for Sosuke to play and was heaving from the effort of holding on until, oh dear Good Lord, his world went blinding white.

Coming down from his euphoric high the orange-haired male found that Sosuke hadn't been sitting there idly waiting for him. Not if the twitching tail inside him was any indicator anyway.

And then the tail was just there and Sosuke was rewarded a breathy moan and the awakened interest of the young man's cock which was being worshipped by Sosuke's free hand, the other re-mapping Ichigo's body. Slowly the tail stroked his quivering insides until there was never enough air in his lungs and the hand at the base of his cock continuously denied his release.

It was then, when he had been reduced to a quivering, moaning wreck on the edge of begging that Sosuke finally pulled out his tail and with one quick thrust was fully settled in Ichigo. With another heartbreakingly warm kiss Sosuke began to rock smoothly, his tail replacing his hand on the young man's cock, his left hand buried in burnt orange locks and the other cupping Ichigo's face to keep the kiss going.

And once again it was becoming too much and the stars were blinding him and with that spot being abused he couldn't help but give in to it all as Sosuke made love to him, and with a hoarse cry of the hybrid's name, he came for the second time. It wasn't long after that he felt the male above tense and shudder, whispering into Ichigo's ear as his own climax overpowered him.

Ichigo's breath caught.

He smiled.

Who cared what anyone else thought if they saw the collar or the bite marks? He didn't. Not if he got to her that whispered into his ears every night.

Life was good.

I love you.