A/N: Konnichiwa, minna! Niji and Silva here again with another short story. The whole thing was incentive for Silva to finish her final. The picture was originally inspired by The Chemical Workers' Song by Great Big Sea, and then the picture inspired the thought that maybe that's how Grimmjow died! And what's Grimmjow without his strawberry? So, here we have Guntar Jaegerjaques and Eamonn O'Duffy as the past lives of our favorite Panther and Berry. If anyone's curious Guntar is German for warrior, Eamonn is Irish for protector, and O'Duffy is Irish for black or swarthy. At least according to Behind the Name.

A moment's hesitation was all there was before the fight had to start. Killing the Shinigami was supposed to be easy. Stabbing the black haired one had been, but the other...a youth, slim build, sienna eyes burning hotter than the sun, and that hair...bright, fucking, orange hair. How long had it been? Since the world stopped making sense? Since that stupid explosion, in that stupid shaft, with that stupid crossbeam, and the stupid canary that fell into the bottom of its stupid cage. How long had it been...since he died? He didn't know and there was no more time to thinking, or contemplate or even reminisce. He had a Shinigami to kill...who'd have thought it would be that hard?

Half a world away and over one hundred years in the past, the foreman of the Penn's Woods Coal Company, Unit # 615 called out in his brusque, choppy English, "Jagger-jack-kez! Pick up yo pace! Stop eye-minding your wife."

"Ah! Git over yerself, Jonas. He ain't been oglin' me. He jus' can't keep up since I rammed 'im one last night." The young Irishman grinned for all he was worth, joining the crew in ribbing his shaft partner.

Around the pair, the rest of the day's workers broke out in rowdy laughter, each of them paired off with a rope, a lantern, two pick axes, and a canary. The early dawn light was just enough that they didn't need to waste oil to see where they were going before descending into the network of sooty tunnels and railroad tracks that carved their way through the rounded mountains in and around the City of Steel.

The young German sucked his teeth and leaned on the shaft of his pickaxe. "Ah, s'a'right," he grinned, big arm muscles bulging as one of his dark eyebrows rose and waggled lecherously, "It'll be yer turn ta git shafted t'night, ja? After all, I haff ta make you pay for dis, I'll be behind schedule!"

His frosty blue eyes glittered in what little light there was, and he faked a limp as he swung the axe up to his shoulder accompanied by a brand new chorus of laughter, the entire group of them marching purposefully down the main tunnel.

"Aye. Cuz it's m'fault? I can't help ya can't take yer eyes off me." The other deliberately drew his hand through the sunset orange strands that beyond even his accent, marked him as a Son of the Emerald Isle.

He too shouldered his axe, and grabbed the canary at his feet, while the rest continued to laugh and carry on until the foreman called out again. Daylight was wasting, even if it had only just broken above the horizon, and they had a train car to fill to make quota by the end of the week. So, slowly, in the pairs they were assigned the miners took to their shafts, breaking off one pair at a time, until it was only the German and the Irishman striding deeper into the bowels of the Earth. These two always took the deepest shaft, and the joke around camp was because they were lovers, wanting to have privacy to be together, in spite that ginger claimed to be married. They were teased about it, but what they couldn't prove, wouldn't hurt the unlikely duo.

The German was secure enough in himself to be okay with the teasing, but for all his rowdiness and tendencies toward bawdy jokes, he actually was a private man. All jokes aside, if anyone asked, what happened in his bedroom—or out of it as the case often was—was nobody's business but his own. As the world turned pitch, he took the end of his cigarette and lit the lamp. No point risking tripping and breaking their necks on a support beam.

"Ya know s'totally yer fault," He teased as he snorted out a misty cloud, dropping the affected limp. "Yer do tha' t'ing wit'cher hips dat makes me nuts."

"I was born ta dance, it's in me blood. B'sides, ya do that thing wit'cher arms that I can't resist. I hafta git back at'cha sum'ow." The Irishman chuckled and brushed his shoulder against the larger man. "Y'know...I'm still a wee surprised ya take th' ribbin' like ya do. Thought ya'd be all ACK NINE BITTER SHANE!" His attempt at German was horrible, since it was both nonsense, and slurred in his atrocious replication of his lover's accent.

Laughter came from deep in the black-haired man's belly and echoed around the mine. Men deep in other tunnels heard it and smiled—it was an infectious laugh. "Ja, und tha' is soo effective," he managed around snickers. "It jus' makes de ribbing vorse. Und you know I am a calm man," he added, grin stretched from ear to ear as he leaned ever so slightly into his partner, best friend, and lover. "Vat about you? De last Irishlander I met, I asked him about de Schwule, und he vent all, 'Ach boot a doon lake laddies a lake lassez," he attempted to imitate the Irish accent and failed just as bad as his lover did at German.

It was all the smaller man could do to keep a hold of his axe and the cage for the canary as he laughed right along with the echoes. "Aye, aye. Well, let's just say ya make me a better man? An' that was Scotland, not Ireland. But I c'n see where ya get yer ideas. M'Da's the same way."

They were about to the end of their tunnel, so the Irishman hung the birdcage on its hook, and held out his hand for the lantern to hang opposite the bird. He turned the hood so it actually pointed up the way they had come. It made it more difficult for them to see, but it made it even harder for anyone else to see them, which meant as soon as the tools were down, the ginger could do what he'd been dying to do since they woke up that morning. Living in a camp of twenty-some men all piled on top of each other made it nigh impossible for anything to happen between them, except in the damp, cool tunnels where no daylight had ever shone. To make up for it they always worked twice as hard, but it was nothing to a pair of bare-knuckle boxers.

Snickering, the taller male handed over the lantern and let his own axe hit the dirt, big hands already reaching for his partner's belt and running along the edge as he gave a seductive growl of sound that sounded like it came from a wildcat's throat. His mother-tongue always sounded like that, but especially when he was, ahem, fired up.

"Ya al'ays sound like th' Cat Sidhe...I like't." Reaching up, the ginger's long fingers entwined in the strands of black the same shade as the mineral they harvested at the base of his lover's neck. He pressed himself against the larger man, licking his lips as the scent he woke up to every morning washed over him. "Mmm, an' ya al'ays smell s'good too."

Then he was kissing the other, a needy, begging exchange between them, that was necessary to swallow the moans he would otherwise be using to broadcast exactly how he felt about his partner.

The German's thick arms wrapped around him and hauled the lithe body against his, a growling moan leaving his chest as he kissed back fiercely, passionately. He was staking his claim, meeting the other's need, and pouring his very soul into that kiss. He put it all into every kiss—in their line of work, men dropped dead of nothing every other day. Hale as an ox one moment, dropped like a downed bird the next. He never took a single moment with his lover for granted—he wanted him to always know how dear he was. That he would give up anything, everything, for him. This man was his world. He would rather give up his left arm then see him come to harm.

Being lifted off the ground brought the Irishman's mile-long legs around his lover's waist. Someday, he swore in his mind every time this happened, someday they would have a real bed, in a real room, where they could take their time and be as loud as they wanted to be without fear of being discovered. He ground his hips against the planes of muscle beneath him and groaned at the friction against his, technically still, morning wood. Those strong hands, and that sinful mouth, it made him thank the Lord every day they were still alive. The brunette brought them slowly to the ground, that thick burly wall of flesh cushioning them both as he let himself thump to his back, never taking his mouth from the other's except to breathe.

"Ich liebe dich, mien Schatz," he murmured into his cheek before kissing him again, repeating the sweet phrase over and over again as he wrangled the other's pants down, undoing his buckle and both big hands diving down them to fondle his schatz's morning need.

The ginger gasped, "Tá grá agam duit."

His hands flew to join his lover's, if only so they could pleasure each other, the buckle coming undone easily under his nimble fingers. But just as he wrapped his digits around the thick length, a screeching made him jump. There was low rumble, something like the growl of wild beast, and all around them something hissed. Though, more scary than the noise, was the sudden cessation of noise. His sienna irises darted to the cage. The canary...she wasn't there...

"Eh...Guntar? I think we shuld..." Then he began to cough.

Guntar, ever-quick concerning such things, was on his feet and pulling his love up as well, dragging him, running—but he could feel it, feel the rumbling of the Earth all the way up from the balls of his feet. He was carrying him now, but the earthquake was faster- there wasn't going to be enough time. He already knew it, knew it in his bones, in his heart, in his soul. There was nothing else to do. He hugged the light of his life harder, stealing one last peck of a kiss.

"I love ya, Eamonn," he breathed. Then he took the slighter man in both hands and slung him as hard as he could, throwing him clear of the shaft just as the rock ceiling came tumbling down.

"NO!" Both hands had left his hips before he even knew what he was trying to catch. "GUNTAR!" He screamed in his native Gaelic, cursing the gods, Heaven, Hell, the king of England, and any other person or concept he could think of as he scrambled to try and get back to his lover.

The ceiling was collapsing, miners everywhere were yelling and dirt choked the air, but all Eamonn saw or heard was the way the tunnel had sealed itself on top of the one person who had ever made him feel like he was something special. Hands, very similar to the ones who'd just left his body, pulled him from the darkness, in spite of the way he fought to get back. He shouted to them in his native tongue, but they kept him from even taking a single step.

Jonas grabbed his face, filling his sight with the foreman's craggy features. "Boy! Mick-boy! He's gone. He's dead. Jagger-jack-kez saved joo life. Is not'ing we can do for him. I sorry. I know you lov'ed him, but must let go now. He is dead before we reach him."

"No! No! We hafta try!" The ginger pulled against the Mexican and the Asian who held him, but sagged after a few half-hearted tries, sobbing.

He knew as well as everyone else, even if they all poured their efforts into clearing the tunnel, not only could each and every one of them join the fallen German, they still wouldn't reach him in time. Their drive for privacy meant he was just too far down to reach before his air soured, and choked him, if he wasn't already crushed by the rocks and timber.

The big German's large bone structure and great strength was just enough to hold out a few moments. He couldn't feel anything below his waist, and his chest was compressed so hard he couldn't take any but the shallowest mouse-breaths, but he persisted, every sense straining to see if he had succeeded. He could hear, very, very faintly, as though very far off and muffled by cotton, the melodic tones of his little treasure's native tongue.

"Kann nicht mal...richtige schwöre..." It was a pointless thing to say, especially in his last moment, but it was true. Damn musical language couldn't even produce a proper curse. But he could let go now...Eamonn was safe. He had at least...managed...that. He let his eyes slide shut and breathed out, rock dust swirling. He did not breathe in again.

That compression in his chest, like being under water only worse. Heavy and...wet? His nightmare had never been wet before? He gasped, sitting bolt upright, sputtering. Panicked breaths forced his ribcage to its limits as his body fought to drive away the paralyzing sense of suffocation. His eyes slowly constricted to see his surroundings—white sand, blue sky that never moved, giant pillars of red and white and black. Ah, yes, Hueco Mundo, Los Noches. He flexed his hands, realizing he'd slipped out of his resurrection, and unconsciously his left slid down his front, down the scar his reincarnated treasure had given him in their first fight, all the way down to the hole that stayed, even long after the support beam had stopped impaling him. He heard Pantera in the corners of his mind growling and snarling in German, and he laughed, loud and hard and long.

"ISTH THAT ANY WAY TO THANKTH ME FOR THAVING YOUR LIFE?!" The shriek from his right only had him laughing harder as the small skull-capped Arrancar threw fit about how he'd woken up and flung her from his chest.

"Oi! Shut it." He grinned and she pouted. "How long've I been out?"

"Months. I dunno. Long enough. The otherth need your help. You gotta thab the Quinthy before he cutth Mr. Hat-dude down." The small girl glared.

"Alright, alright. I'm movin'. Why've I gotta save th' damn Shinigami?" He climbed to his feet dusting himself off and straightening things, because where one Shinigami was, the one he truly cared about was sure to be there somewhere.

"Cuz, he helpth Istygo." He hauled her up to his shoulder and gave a look, then launched into Sonido.

It was quick work, and the orange-haired bint that was both the reason he had both of his arms and the reason he had the mask on his face, healed him up completely before dashing into the tent the blonde Shinigami had set up. Stupid deal about not killing them off or some shit he didn't quite understand, and he was sure he was going to be tricked. All Shinigami were like that. He could hear them talking, the princess chick was all excited about something.

"Huh? What are you guys doing?" He tried to enter the tent, only to be blocked by the half-Mexican dude that reminded him of the one guy that was always paired up with their only Asian. He glared, and then he heard it! His treasure's voice! It didn't have the lilting Irish brogue anymore but he'd know it anywhere, "That voice! Kurosaki?! Kurosaki, you shit-stain, you're there aren't you?!"

The blonde Shinigami whipped around, "No he's not!"

"DON'T FUCK WITH ME I HEARD HIS VOICE!" He roared.

The Shinigami in the hat cried out, "Like I said, he's not there! Sado-san, Inoue-san! Use that and chase him out of the tent!"

"YESSIR!" The princess bitch exclaimed as she and the half-Mexican crowded the entrance, their powers aiding them in holding him back.

"GUAH! QUIT IT YOU SONS OF—!"

He had to dodge and run for a bit, not wanting to violate the terms of the deal by calling Pantera to get past them, but there was nothing going to keep him from getting into that tent to see his treasure! However, as he finally burst through the fabric, the stupid Shinigami with his stupid fan and hat was waiting for him and he already knew his treasure was long gone. So, he merely growled and stalked back out of the tent to 'meditate'—he refused to call it pouting, no matter what the tiny Arrancar child said.

A/N 2: Here's the translations if anyone is interested, though they are thanks to Google Translate, so...I can only guess they're right. XD

German:

Ja - yes, yeah, ne
Schwule - gay
Ich liebe dich, mein Schatz. - I love you, my treasure.
Kann nicht mal...richtige schwöre... - Cannot even swear...right...

Eamonn's botched German:

ACK NINE BITTER SHANE! - Ach nein bitte schön - Ah no please very much!

Irish (Gaelic):

Aye - yes, yeah, ne
Cat Sidhe - the King of Cats out of Celtic Mythology, something of a fairy, and based on a breed of wildcat native to Scotland.
Tá grá agam duit. - I have love for you. —literally but used in context as I love you.

Guntar's botched Irish (Gaelic):

Ach boot a doon lake laddies a lake lassez - Ah but I don't like boys, I like girls.