A/N: Chapter One, Updated and Expanded

Grimmjow Jaegerjaques was the scum of the earth. He was the dog shit that got stuck on the bottom of your shoe and you unknowingly tracked it around all day wondering what the hell that smell was. He was the insect that crawls into your drink, you end up swallowing it, and then you spit it back up after you choke enough to make your eyes water. He was the used tampon left out in the open in the girls' bathroom of your high school. His blue hair was wild and his darker blue eyes were furious. He got no respect, but fear? Oh, yes he got fear. Pure, unrestrained, irrational fear everywhere he went. It puffed out of common assholes like a defense mechanism. And fuck, it felt tremendous when he grabbed the random businessman passing by his usual hangout at the side of Stark's custom gun shop.

The man in the black suit was pretty built in the muscle department, but he was one of those who went to the gym and beefed up for looks. This sniveling, shivering asshole didn't know how to use any of it properly and any urge to do so went out of his head when his black eyes met blue and recognized who exactly was crushing his windpipe with callused hands. Grimmjow smirked and decided to end this quick because Stark didn't like him to kill people outside of his shop. One hit with his free hand and the filthy rich bastard was out of his mind. Literally. Grimmjow dropped the slack body and went through the assholes pockets, the smooth and silky material cool beneath his hands.

The guy had a slim, leather wallet with no cash in it at all. Of course. Rich bastards like him only carried credit. And apparently a little slip of paper with all of their information for said credit. Grimmjow shook his head and chuckled under his breath, slipping the wallet into his back jeans pocket and pulling the unconscious body further into the alley. He made sure to drag the guy close to either side of the alley so his face would drag across the brick and mark up his face a bit. Glancing at the darkening sky, Grimmjow left the alley and made his way to the entrance of Stark's shop. A bell tinkled as he pushed the door open. Stark's shop was neat and clean. Only a few actual guns were for sell because being a custom shop most people brought in guns they already had so Stark could fix them up. Even though the gun selection was small and not anything really to look at, the carefully placed display cases with finished custom guns of all kinds and years drew in the money.

The beige walls were covered with digital photos of work Stark had already done for past customers and some designs he drew. Stark's personal work was kept upstairs where he lived above his shop. Not seeing his sometimes friend, Grimmjow walked around the sales desk on the right and into the back room. A slim man with brown skin and shoulder length black hair was laying over the surface of the desk he was sitting at and snoring loudly with his head facing away from the door. Grimmjow swung his open hand towards said head, but it was caught around the wrist before it could make contact. The blue haired guy was no stranger to the black haired man's reflexes. He just grinned and kicked him in the shin. Stark hissed and let go of his wrist so he could rub his fingers over his new point of pain. Hazy grey eyes stared at him.

"What do you want this time?" Stark mumbled. Grimmjow sat on the desk and sighed.

"I need to use your laptop, Doggie." Stark had a thing for wolves and Grimmjow had a thing for pissing people off. The problem was that Stark also had a thing for never getting angry or riled up. This was strangely and secretly refreshing for Grimmjow which was one of the reasons he kept coming back to the damn shop all the time for nonsensical shit. Stark stared at him some more, Grimmjow could see disappointment and it pissed him off a little, even made him feel the tiniest bit guilty for a few seconds.

"For what?" Stark asked. "I'm not letting you use it for any illegal shit. You should go to school for all that genius tinkering you do over at Nnoitra's garage. I told you that I would pay for it."

Grimmjow sneered at him in anger.

"Poor Stark. You want to help the no good bastard you see all the time who's secretly screaming for help, but he just won't listen."

"Grimmjow—"

"I don't need your fucking school!" He slammed his hand down hard enough to rattle the surface of the desk. "And I don't need your fucking pity, Stark! I asked for your laptop, not all of this extra shit. Go save someone else's fucked up life. I'm sure the kids with the distended bellies would appreciate it in Africa."

Stark opened his mouth to say something and Grimmjow hissed like a snake. Stark just shook his head and held up one finger to indicate the upstairs part of the shop. Grimmjow gave him one last death contemplating glare and left. He hurried up the stairs, heart clenching and unclenching in his chest. After so many years, Grimmjow still got excited and nervous when it was time for him to do his online search. Most would have given up a long time ago, but most wouldn't have done what he had as teenager. Stark's laptop was in his bedroom, sitting on a desk that was nudged under the sill of a window.

Grimmjow's boots squeaked across the hardwood floor and he sighed heavily as he sat down in the desk chair. The laptop booted up in seconds and he used the Bluetooth mouse to navigate the web. A certain website, , was a heavily protected bidding website similar to ebay in some ways. Rare, exotic, and endangered animals were up for bid constantly, but the main draw was the neko section. The neko's weren't purebred; the purebred breeds were always chipped and kept track of. Private breeding was not allowed, only government sanctioned breeders having the privilege. sold kidnapped nekos and illegally bred nekos, selling them to the highest bidder in online auctions.

He signed in, typing in countless passwords onto the black screen. Once he was on the website, he clicked on the neko link and searched the same two words he'd searched for since he'd lost what was most important to him; orange tabby. A tabby was nothing special, not even the four-legged breed. The one he was looking for though, he was the sun and light Grimmjow used to bask in, the only good he'd ever gotten out of life. The results loaded quickly and then the screen blacked out again, requiring more passwords and identification. Grimmjow bypassed it by giving the stupid rich asshole's identification and scrolled through the results.

There were only fifteen orange tabby nekos. He scrolled slowly, peering at the photos closely. His finger froze as his gaze passed number thirteen. Sweat beaded on his skin as he stared at those big brown eyes, that wild orange hair grown longer than he was used to seeing it, the pale gold skin he'd tried so hard to get his hands on.

"Ichigo." He whispered to the photo. "Ichigo Kurosaki."

He could remember the moment they met. A cold hearted teen staring at an orange haired neko eating ramen and twitching his ears… Grimmjow had seen plenty of neko before, Japan was full of them it seemed sometimes. The oddness though was that this particular neko was unattached. No owner standing over him or at his side. The neko freely sat at the outside bar and enjoyed a large bowl of steaming ramen. What did that feel like? Free to do what you liked? Having to do nothing more than what you were doing in any moment? Those ears twitched in what he assumed was happiness. Suddenly, the neko looked over and smiled.

"You can touch my ears if you want." He said. "I won't be offended. You've been staring awhile."

Grimmjow's heart thumped in his chest as he stood and gently rubbed his fingers and the palm of his hand over those furry ears. So warm, so soft. Then he'd done something he hadn't since he was a small child. He squeezed his eyes shut and he wrapped his arms around another living being, face buried in the neko's hair, and the neko purred quietly while Grimmjow's heart ached.

"Ichigo Kurosaki." He said again, a small smile on his lips this time.

He clicked the link to Ichigo's information. His hand squeezed into a fist and his stomach twisted painfully in his body. The neko wasn't much in the way of cost. Ichigo was still just an orange tabby and most bidders were putting their money on tiger nekos or leopard breeds. Ichigo was only twenty thousand at the moment and bidding would end in ten minutes. Grimmjow used the asshole's credit card and put sixty thousand on Ichigo, just to be safe. Impatiently, he waited out the bidding, which was half-hearted at best, only going up to twenty two thousand. After payment was accepted, Ichigo's location was revealed to Grimmjow on the screen. He couldn't help but grin. Ichigo was in America too and Grimmjow knew exactly where.

Stark P.O.V.

Stark sighed and rested his chin on his hand. To save Grimmjow was his quest in life. It seemed like the kid had always been homeless, like the city had fucked the misery of the world and Grimmjow had risen up from the sidewalk. His looks and size stood out, but Stark had never seen him with anyone else unless he was beating the shit out of them with a delighted and sadistic grin on his face. He knew the kid had gone to high school because he'd met him while he was in the later years of it. His school uniform had been ratty and torn. The shirt no longer anywhere near white, black smudges and blood stains all over it. His slacks had been ripped at the knees and rumpled and Stark had to wonder if he had done it on purpose. Stark had gone to the kid's school and ordered him a new one. So that one day when the kid had come slamming into his shop, he'd gotten an armful of new clothes and a rare stern look from grey eyes.

Grimmjow didn't give much, in anything. And he had to guess that Grimmjow didn't give much because he didn't take much either. Stark didn't press him too much. The kid was twenty three to Stark's thirty so he could handle himself just fine. The problem was that he and Grimmjow's definition of fine were like sun and moon. Grimmjow could be starving and living in a cardboard box and say that he was fine. As it was, Stark didn't know where the hell the kid even lived. Maybe he should have cut Grimmjow loose a long time ago, but Stark's training wouldn't let him do that. Grimmjow was bad enough with his violence and illegal activity, but Stark felt that it would be much worse if the kid had no one to go to from time to time, no one to put some kind of boundaries on him.

He saw the kid as a brother, family. The kid had even become family to the rest of Stark's unit, though Grimmjow didn't know it; being undercover was troublesome sometimes. Grimmjow never did anything too bad, so they always turned a blind eye, though Stark did put a stop to the kid doing that shit around his shop. He sighed and stared out of the glass doors of said shop. While he knew what Grimmjow was up to on the street, he didn't know what he was up to one the web. Stark's computer was way more high tech than the average. The device was wiped clean automatically after every usage, so when the kid shut it down after doing whatever he did, Stark couldn't go back and see what he'd been up to; a double-edged sword. Stark let it go though, his own business on that laptop was far more important and the laptop wiping itself would insure secrecy if someone ever figured him out and killed him.

A loud bang resonated across his ceiling, causing him to sit up straight and focus. Seconds later, Grimmjow ran down the stairs and out of the doors without a word or glance. Stark watched him disappear and cursed. It was times like that when he wished he could check the history on that laptop.