Chapter Text
They unanimously agree to leave without either of them talking about it. Nakatoka-san cries and waves them off, but they’ve paid up all their rent and left behind lots of things that she can sell. Yumichika doesn’t regret the loss nearly as much as he thought he would; he still has the sword after all, and it’s the most beautiful thing he has ever owned, so it’s all right.
Yumichika gets to watch many, many more fights, and it’s glorious. Ikkaku is never more beautiful than when he’s skewering people with a grin on his face, and it’s only half because Yumichika can feel his reiatsu much more strongly when he fights. Every so often, Ikkaku will beckon Yumichika to join, and those times are even better, but mostly, he’s happy to watch Ikkaku in his element. He wouldn’t ever take that away from Ikkaku, not even if Ikkaku were losing.
It’s even all right when they’re holed up in some cold, abandoned building in the 72nd, huddling together under a blanket. Without Ikkaku Yumichika would go back to his old life, of course, but that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t like this one.
The dreams are back; they do so much travelling that he doesn’t work steadily, grabbing pieces of satiation for himself wherever he can, in alleyways and against walls and on dusty floors. Once they get into the 70s no one has any real money, just these carved wooden bits, and precious little of that. He can tell Ikkaku’s worried about him, worried about the way he’ll get down on his knees for a jar of water, but it’s not as if he can explain that he gets a piece of his sanity back, too.
He doesn’t tell Ikkaku about that one man in the 71st who fell unconscious into a gutter, when it had been more than a week since he’d worked or fought and just for a moment, the screaming hunger obliterated everything in his mind. Thereafter he fights more; past the 69th, no one cares who or how you kill. More people try to mug him, too, since he sticks out here even worse than he did in the 66th, and he handles it.
Still, coming all the way out to the 79th wasn’t a good idea, Yumichika thinks. For one thing, it’s a long walk back to civilization since the carriage only comes once a month, and for another, most of the people here seem to either be dead, dying or hiding from everyone else. Not much fight left in them. Ikkaku, of course, is still shouting challenges out loud enough to echo down the whole...street, for the lack of a better word.
Laughter, the childish laughter of a young girl, echoes down the street. Ikkaku runs towards it, but Yumichika hangs back, feeling. The reiatsu - and it’s unmistakably hers, sharp and energetic - is massive. Maybe that’s why Ikkaku is running, even though he can’t feel reiatsu as well as Yumichika can.
Is it all hers? There’s a sudden blast of reiatsu, and then Yumichika can feel what he should have felt all along: there’s two people with reiatsu other than him and Ikkaku. A man this time, whose reiatsu is screaming for blood loudly enough, for once, that he can hear it over Ikkaku’s.
All three exit the alley, and the girl is even younger than he thought, not a toddler anymore but not far from it. She’s mostly clean, with bright pink hair, and she seems cheerful as if well-fed. Unusual for around here. She takes up position next to Yumichika and looks at him with interest.
Ikkaku and the other man are squaring off, and Yumichika allows himself a small smile. The man has at least six inches on Ikkaku in height, and his whole body is vast, broad shoulders and barrel chest and muscular arms. It will be a good fight for Ikkaku, he thinks. With the reiatsu he feels, perhaps even good enough for Yumichika to join in.
“Ikkaku,” he says.
Ikkaku grins, and holds his sword up. “No helping out.”
“All right,” Yumichika says, and watches. Watching will be almost as good this time.
It’s like no fight Yumichika has ever seen. How is a man so large and strong also so fast? Ikkaku holds his own, but fear begins to trickle into Yumichika’s stomach; the man’s reiatsu is rising still, slowly, as if he’s trying to draw this out as long as possible.
“Oh, Ken-chan’s smiling!” The little girl with the pink hair says. “It’s a shame it’ll be over soon…”
He’s more than a match for Ikkaku, and still getting faster, and - that’s a smile? It looks more like some demon’s grimace. It feels to Yumichika as though his sword shifts in his obi, hungering for a fight, because the little pink girl is right - Ikkaku can’t win this. He’s not going to win this, he’s going to die, and Yumichika promised faithfully that he wouldn’t help but he didn’t promise that he would just watch Ikkaku die.
We could bleed him dry.
Yumichika shivers. He needs to get back to civilization, to his job and his life.
All that delicious reiatsu...he would sate us for weeks.
He can’t do that to Ikkaku. Ikkaku would never forgive him. He wants to close his eyes and not have to see Ikkaku cut down, but he can’t; he knows Ikkaku would want him to see. He forces himself to watch as the demon moves too fast to even follow , slices, and reappears behind Ikkaku.
He bites down on his tongue, smelling blood.
But Ikkaku is alive, just; Yumichika can still feel him, and so can the man because he’s talking, telling Ikkaku to come fight him again. The last thing he says before walking off with the little pink girl on his shoulders is his name: Kenpachi no Zaraki. It’s not a name at all; the unkillable one of Zaraki district, no. 80.
The crowd is dispersing now, so Yumichika walks towards Ikkaku and kneels down beside him.
“Yumi…” Ikkaku starts, as if there’s something he wants to say while his chest is ripped to pieces.
“Shut up,” Yumichika says, and rips the bottom edge off his kimono then uses it to bind Ikkaku’s chest and stop the bleeding as best he can.
“You didn’t help,” Ikkaku manages, and coughs wetly, but one hand curls around Yumichika’s wrist and holds on.
Yumichika rolls his eyes. “Of course not,” he says, and lifts Ikkaku till he’s approximately upright, one arm across Yumichika’s shoulders, and Yumichika can drag him back to the abandoned shack they’re currently squatting in and have it look something like he’s just helping Ikkaku walk. “As if you’d have ever shut up about it if I had.”
Eventually, he lays Ikkaku down on the dirty floor and feeds him some water and a piece of bread. “You die on me, Ikkaku, and I’ll kill you,” he says. “I’ll follow you back to the living world and kill you again. Then follow you back here, of course. So you might as well save yourself the hassle and just live.”
Ikkaku offers a weak grin, but he’s tired. Yumichika hopes it’s a healing sleep he’s falling into. He grabs a blanket and curls up next to Ikkaku, close as he can manage, and if he could feed Ikkaku some of his own reiatsu to make up the deficit, he would. He can’t, though, so he settles for sharing body heat and breath and blood, and some sick part of him considers taking his sword and slicing his own skin to spread his blood over Ikkaku, and then it would be a proper sharing.
He licks blood off his fingers absently and thinks, is there reiatsu in blood? Ikkaku’s tastes sweeter than anyone else’s, but Yumichika had always thought that was just because he’s Ikkaku. Maybe not; maybe the blood of Kenpachi no Zaraki would be sweet as well, or perhaps not sweet but still taste like reiatsu, somehow, though he’s sure reiatsu shouldn’t have a taste.
It does, though. It does, and he’s still hungry. A little less hungry than he was before the fight, though that could just be tiredness or nausea or adrenaline. When Ikkaku is well - maybe before, if Yumichika can find some way to take him - they’ll go back to the 78th, where there are at least proper and shops and inns, and have a decent meal.
Ikkaku mumbles in his sleep, and Yumichika holds on as tightly as he dares.
-
Ikkaku’s still there in the morning, still breathing, though his cuts are still oozing in places. Yumichika prods him till he wakes and then makes him eat the last of a stale loaf of bread, then walks most of the way to the 78th in search of someone selling food. He’s exhausted and starving before he finds a woman selling plain onigiri, and he buys enough to last a few days and steels himself for the walk home. He eats as he walks, wondering if he should have bought more, but he’ll be no good to anyone passed out on the street.
No one asks him about his kimono, once so beautiful, now much shorter than it should be, ripped along the bottom and stained with blood. When Yumichika gets back to Ikkaku, he’s awake and annoyed.
“You coulda said where you were going. Thought you’d - left, or something.” He tries to sit up and fails, and the sound of his breathing is all wrong. Yumichika wants to just curl up next to him again and eat onigiri and wait for him to be well.
He examines his nails; they’re filthy. He should wash his hands before doing what he’s about to do, really, but he’s not sure they can spare the water. “If I were going to leave, I’d have done it when you suggested coming to the 79th. It’s vile out here, and the minute you can stand I am dragging you as far up the 70s as I can.”
Ikkaku nods. “I wanna find him again, once I’m healed up. I reckon he’s gone up the districts - nothing special out in the 80th.”
Yumichika’s stomach clenches. He should eat some more, and feed Ikkaku too; he opens the bag of onigiri and pushes it towards Ikkaku. “You’ve been?”
Ikkaku stills. He doesn’t say anything for a long moment, then reaches for some onigiri. “Just on the outskirts. Not much there but dead people rotting.”
When they’ve finished eating, Yumichika closes up the bag and shucks his kimono. There’s nothing clean for him to don - the kimono was his last clean thing - so he puts on an old Yukata that is stained rather than actively dirty.Then he rips his kimono into strips.
“Oi, you planning on bandaging me up with flowery kimono?” Ikkaku clearly hasn’t noticed that he’s already bandaged in flowery kimono.
Yumichika raises one eyebrow. “I’ll stop when you can fight me off.”
Ikkaku continues to grumble under his breath, but when it comes time to peel off the bandage covering the huge gash down his chest, he clutches at Yumichika’s thigh hard with one hand. Yumichika doesn’t say anything, just rinses off the wound as best he can and rewraps it.
It’s dark by the time he’s done, and Ikkaku has gone quiet. Yumichika lies down next to him, exhausted all of a sudden, and pulls the blanket over them.
“You don’t hafta look after me like this,” Ikkaku mumbles. “ll’be fine.”
Yumichika would elbow him in the gut if he could. “Don’t be stupid,” he says.
-
It’s a little over a week later by the time they’re in the 78th eating the best hot dinner the best inn of the 78th can provide. Which is to say, a bowl of noodles, and the floor has been swept recently. Ikkaku is still bandaged, but in white linen, and it’s only really a few wraps over the chest would to protect it.
He’s still in the strange mood he’s been in all week.
Yumichika mentally gives up all the plans he had to work tonight, and orders sake for both of them. He sighs, waits for Ikkaku to drain the small bowl, fills it up again, and takes a sip of his own. “If this is because you’re disappointed to be alive still, I’m getting you drunk and confiscating your sword.”
Ikkaku glares at that, but then settles back to morose contemplation of his sake bowl. “Nah, it’s not that. It’s just - luck’s a stupid reason to survive. You can’t control luck.”
Yumichika shrugs. “Well, both of us should have been dead a few times over. Maybe luck’s on our side.”
“Mmm.” Ikkaku downs his second bowl. “I’m still gonna find him.”
“And try to kill him again?” Yumichika’s voice is perfectly level, he’s sure of it, but Ikkaku looks at him sharply.
“Fight him again, yeah. But - I dunno. Maybe he could teach me a few things.” A pause. “It’d be all right to be killed by him.”
So it’s like that, Yumichika thinks. Well, at least they know Zaraki’s not in the 79th or 80th; it’ll be all uphill from here, district wise, even if they have to travel around a lot. “If you say so. I’d still kill him afterwards, though.”
“Eh? Don’t be daft; you’d die trying if I had already.” But Ikkaku’s smiling now, and it’s better.
“Maybe that’s the point,” Yumichika says. It wasn’t supposed to come out the way it did: as if he’s serious. Which he is. It’s probably the sake, which is sliding down their throats much more smoothly than usual. “You never know, though. I might get lucky.” He doesn’t want to imagine what kind of creature he’d be without Ikkaku.
And it seems like the sake’s affecting Ikkaku too, or maybe that was just the right thing to say, because Ikkaku leans across the table and kisses him firmly once, mouth closed. That’s probably all it was meant to be, but one of them leans in again, and Yumichika opens his lips and thinks, Let me taste you. He doesn’t really know what he’s doing, but the strangeness of the action is utterly overshadowed by Ikkaku, all warm and hard shoulders and familiar smell. He thinks he’d give Ikkaku anything he asked for, and this is no hardship at all; in fact it’s not nearly enough, and if thinking about what it would be like with Ikkaku is just a part of his life, then so was the thought that he’d never find out.
Ikkaku pulls back and blinks at him, pupils blown and one hand on Yumichika’s chest. “Yumi...I dunno if this is a great idea…”
What does that even mean? Hesitance: why? Ikkaku was the one who kissed him, after all these years of thinking Ikkaku didn’t want him for this, and now maybe he does, and Yumichika doesn’t understand at all. If Ikkaku wants him, he can have everything; if Ikkaku doesn’t, then why this?
Yumichika isn’t sure he’ll be able to stand it if he gives up this one chance to find out, so he swivels round and swings one leg across Ikkaku’s lap and settles there. Ikkaku’s eyes widen. “What are you - ”
Yumichika shuts him up with another kiss, and there’s still that hesitation in the touch and it makes him want to scream, but it only lasts a moment because Ikkaku slides one arm around his hips and one hand into his hair and takes. He forgets they’re even in a public place until Ikkaku’s arm tightens and he stands, lifting Yumichika with him, and Yumichika’s spinning in space with his arms around Ikkaku’s neck as Ikkaku carries him to their room. They might both be drunk but he’s not even a little afraid that Ikkaku will drop him, and sure enough Ikkaku kneels to release Yumichika onto the bed.
They sit on the bed, Yumichika curling around Ikkaku as close as he can, and kiss. No one ever said kissing was like this, but then again, he honestly can’t remember the last person who kissed him, and he suspects the difference is all Ikkaku. Ikkaku’s hands all over his body are inexpert but he doesn’t care; he seems to have discarded half of his ordinary procedures to just kiss and hold, and though the circling and shifting of his hips in Ikkaku’s lap is half-automatic, he’s not used to how good it feels, how much the low groans from Ikkaku’s throat please him to hear.
He doesn’t know what to do with his hands; just resting them on Ikkaku’s shoulders is unsatisfying, somehow. But Ikkaku lifts his hands and places them on his own chest, and - oh, he’s allowed? He slides his hands up and down Ikkaku’s back, and Ikkaku doesn’t seem to mind so he continues, stroking over shoulders and arms and everywhere he can reach. He doesn’t know why it gives him so much pleasure to map Ikkaku like this, but he’ll be able to look at Ikkaku’s back tomorrow and think, I know what it feels like to touch.
Eventually, Ikkaku’s hands find the tie of Yumichika’s obi and undo it, fumbling a little, as though Ikkaku is not used to this angle. But he manages, then pulls Yumichika’s kimono off his shoulders, and makes a soft noise at the first touch of his hands against Yumichika’s bare skin. Yumichika throws himself back into their kisses and hopes that Ikkaku will decide to take off his tunic, so they can do this skin to skin with nothing in between.
In a moment of boldness Yumichika presses kisses down Ikkaku’s neck and across his shoulders. Ikkaku tastes like blood and steel and just a little sweet, and Yumichika could get drunk doing this, surely. It’s confusing, because Ikkaku makes encouraging noises and puts Yumichika’s hands where he wants them, and Yumichika doesn’t know anymore what he shouldn’t do; he can’t, surely, have everything. But he can have Ikkaku’s taste and scent and hands on his hips and through his hair, he can have Ikkaku’s tongue in his mouth and the feel of the skin on the back of Ikkaku’s neck under his fingertips, and he’s drowning in the things he can have all of a sudden, things he never dared ask for even in the privacy of his own head. Ikkaku gives freely, and he has to push aside the urge to just hold on tight with all his strength.
Ikkaku does slip off his tunic then, brisk and efficient, and when he leans back into Yumichika, he can’t help but bury his face in Ikkaku’s shoulder and spend a moment just feeling, Ikkaku’s hipbones against the skin of his inner thighs, and how hard Ikkaku is underneath him. He shifts his hips experimentally, and suddenly Ikkaku is all urgency, leaning forward until Yumichika is on his back and Ikkaku’s on top of him, and Yumichika pulls the blankets over them like a cocoon. Then he reaches behind under a pillow for a small pot of oil, and hands it to Ikkaku.
Ikkaku swallows, and dips his fingers in. “Should I…”
“No,” Yumichika says. “I’m sick of waiting.” He slicks his own fingers and strokes Ikkaku’s cock, and Ikkaku tips his head back and groans for a few seconds before seeming to remember what he’s doing. He shuffles closer, and Yumichika hooks one leg over his shoulder and the other around his waist, pulling him in.
“Fuck,” Ikkaku swears, squeezing his eyes shut briefly. Yumichika uses the leverage of the ankle at the back of Ikkaku’s neck to pull him in for a kiss, and Ikkaku looks round at the leg over his shoulder. “Gods, you know what you’re doing, eh?” He catches Yumichika’s gaze again, but there’s no judgement at all on his face. So Yumichika smiles and tightens just the right muscles, and lifts his hips to match Ikkaku’s movements, and if Ikkaku had planned to say anything else it falls from his lips as a series of hoarse groans instead. He leans forward, seeming to believe in Yumichika’s flexibility, and slides one hand around the back of Yumichika’s neck and the other to the small of his back, holding their bodies flush together as he moves.
Yumichika’s eyes keep fluttering closed, but he fights to keep them open because he doesn’t want to miss a single one of Ikkaku’s pleasure-soaked expressions, or the way the muscles on his shoulders tense and flex. He doesn’t recognise half of the sounds that come out of his mouth, and he hopes that Ikkaku doesn’t either, hopes that Ikkaku can hear that there are parts of Yumichika that are hidden from everyone but him.
“Please,” he says, but doesn’t have the breath to finish his sentence, and it’s a little frightening because he’s so close and he doesn’t know what Ikkaku wants him to do. Whatever Ikkaku wants from him, it’s not the same as what everyone else wants from him; Ikkaku is holding him as if he wants to merge their bodies, as if he wants to wake up in the morning still wrapped together. “Please, I – ” he tries again, but Ikkaku fucks him a little harder and he can hardly hold words in his head. “Can I – ”
Ikkaku still makes a sound like, “huh?” Then he frowns for a minute and eventually manages, “Wait for me?” and it’s a question, so Yumichika says, “Yes,” and it seems to just unravel Ikkaku. He gives Yumichika a hard kiss then curls his forehead into the crook of Yumichika’s neck and shoulder, saying “Yumichika, Yumichika, god,” over and over again.
Yumichika does close his eyes then, and throws both arms around Ikkaku’s back as tightly as he can. He holds on, and when Ikkaku’s firm, steady rhythm falters and shakes, he lets himself fall. It feels like Ikkaku’s carrying him again, and Ikkaku says, “Yumichika,” just once more as his body shudders under Yumichika’s hands.
Ikkaku is lying on him, and it ought to be suffocating, but the warm weight is just comforting. It doesn’t last; Ikkaku moves, manoeuvring them both onto their sides so he can kiss Yumichika again, languid and sleepy. Yumichika resists sleep at first, but Ikkaku’s fingers play softly with his hair, and he’s warmer than he’s ever been, and after a while he lets go.
-
Waking up is glorious. Yumichika opens his eyes and he’s curled into Ikkaku’s chest, tucked under his chin, and there’s something missing. It takes him a moment to work out what it is: that lingering fear, whenever he’s touched, that he’ll be dragged away and trapped and hurt. Even when it’s Ikkaku, though Ikkaku is still safer than anyone else including no one at all – but it seems that this morning, he gets a reprieve.
Ikkaku makes a sleepy noise, shifts, and opens bleary eyes. “M’rnin’,” he manages, blinks a few more times, then looks down at Yumichika. “Uh…you’re naked,” he says.
Yumichika raises one eyebrow. “Well observed.”
“And – ” is that a blush? Yumichika has never seen Ikkaku embarrassed before. “So am I.”
“Yes.”
Ikkaku unlatches himself and can’t quite seem to meet Yumichika’s eyes, saying things like, “Shit, where’s my clothes?”, and a cold weight begins to form in Yumichika’s stomach when Ikkaku stands and pull on clothes as quickly as possible. Come back, he doesn’t say. I was going to ask if I could kiss you good morning.
Yumichika stands too, then. Ikkaku flinches, and yes, Yumichika has noticed before that Ikkaku is strangely wary of seeing him naked, but now there’s not an inch of Yumichika’s body that Ikkaku’s warm, rough hands have not branded with touch, so it doesn’t make any sense.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry,” Ikkaku blurts, fully dressed now. He keeps looking at his hands as though he’s not sure that they belong to him.
“What for?”
Ikkaku rubs his forehead above his eyebrows, and Yumichika gets a proper feel for just how distressed he is when he looks up again. “Cause – we were both drunk, but I remember I kissed you, and you didn’t say – I don’t even know if – ” He must pick up that Yumichika doesn’t understand a word of what he’s saying, so he continues, “You do stuff all the time that you don’t really want to do, and I don’t remember you ever saying no before, and I see the way you have to make yourself sit still sometimes when people are, are, sortof all over you, and…” He clenches his fists, frustrated. “I didn’t wanna be one of those guys.”
“I – it’s all right,” Yumichika says, is the only thing he can think of to say. “I didn’t mind, I – that’s not why I let you fuck me.” And it was the wrong thing to say, obviously, because something in Ikkaku’s expression breaks, and he looks away.
“But it sounds like maybe I am,” he says, and his voice is rough and breaking. “I don’t know how to make it better. If I just – I could pay you, and then maybe it’d be like just another person you could forget – ”
No. No, no, you weren’t just another, you’ll never be just anything, take it back, say you don’t think of me like that. He was sure, so sure, that that’s what affection feels like distilled into touch, but he hasn’t got a good handle on affection, anyway. He casts around for something to say and realises that his vision is blurry, so he takes a deep breath and swallows once, clenching every muscle he can to stay upright.
“You idiot; we share all the money, anyway,” is what comes out of his mouth. He’s desperate for the right thing to say, the thing that will make Ikkaku understand that it wasn’t like that at all, that Ikkaku could have anything he wanted and Yumichika gave freely, and took too, took kisses and strong hands splayed out against his back and his own name said in his ear like some sort of prayer. But he doesn’t know what it is.
Yumichika hates the expression on Ikkaku’s face, like he doesn’t have any idea what to do, so he turns round and picks up his kimono. It smells like sake and sex and Ikkaku, so he drops it, and fetches another.
“Uh, should I go?” Ikkaku says, and it’s hesitant when Ikkaku is never hesitant about anything.
Yes. No. Don’t go, never go. “If you want,” he says.
Ikkaku sighs, and his jaw clenches. “No, I mean – I wanna know if you think I should go.”
Some part of Yumichika panics at this; it’s stupid, it’s only a question, but he doesn’t know what the right answer is. “Yes,” he says eventually, because he doesn’t know how to fix this, and any pretence of being okay isn’t going to last five minutes.
Ikkaku nods and goes immediately. Yumichika notices how cold he is and pulls a shawl out of the drawer, then another, then puts them both back because it seems that everything he owns smells of Ikkaku. Or maybe it’s him, he thinks, caught between the desire to bathe right now and the stupid part of him that thinks he could leave the memories on his skin for just a little longer.
It’s while he’s bathing that a soft, sorrowful voice in his mind informs him that the words he was looking for were I wanted you.
-
He tries them on in his mind. He tries to say them out loud, but they stick in his throat. Three short words, but they taste heavy and unfamiliar, wrongness spreading across his tongue.
The idea that he wants Ikkaku is – frightening, but he looks at all the things he thinks about Ikkaku and concludes that he does. He wants Ikkaku, wants everything about him, everything that there is to be had. It’s far, far too much to ask, and surely even the wanting is some sort of intrusion, some sort of expectation, and he doesn’t want Ikkaku to feel like that.
He tries to imagine himself saying it out loud, and can’t.
Yumichika supposes he’d imagined, in his sleep- and pleasure-filled haze this morning, that it’d be simple. That he could just kiss Ikkaku good morning, and maybe they’d fuck again, and he’d be able to go on with his life as usual but with Ikkaku’s arm round his waist and an ever-present invitation to touch.
That Ikkaku wouldn’t regret it.
Well, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t understand a fucking word that Ikkaku said, honestly; what does the fact that his job isn’t all sunshine and roses have to do with the sex that they had? Why would Ikkaku try to pay him, and say that he wants Yumichika to forget about it? Surely, that’s regret.
Yumichika has no idea how Ikkaku expects him to just forget. You can’t fuck me like you love me and just leave, Ikkaku. You can’t.
Please, please don’t.
He’d thought maybe Ikkaku had got used to the idea that he’s a whore – had decided that maybe it didn’t matter and Ikkaku wanted him anyway – but clearly this isn’t true. He fucks people for money, but he slept with Ikkaku because...
He ought to admit it in the privacy of his own head, really. Lying to himself won’t get him anywhere.
He slept Ikkaku because he wanted to. He still wants to, still wants Ikkaku more than any single other thing that he can think of. And for a few hours Yumichika felt like Ikkaku wanted just as much as he does. Was that feeling a lie?
God, he wants that feeling again. Would kneel at Ikkaku’s feet and beg forgiveness for whatever the hell it is he did wrong, to get that feeling back. Ikkaku, he’s sure, would just look at him like he’s crazy and ask him what the hell he was doing.
But Ikkaku is the one who apologised. Apologised for what they did, but that doesn’t make any sense either. Why would he apologise for sex? Sure, Yumichika’s been forced before, but no one who did that looked like they were remotely sorry.
Yumichika doesn’t want a fucking apology; he just wants Ikkaku to hold him again and stop looking at him like he’s broken.
He can’t have any of the things he wants. He preferred not wanting things; it was easier.
To make things worse, the hunger is gone. Well – perhaps not gone. He closes his eyes and breathes, and tries to feel: no, it’s not gone, it’s just sitting quiescent somewhere inside. He feels almost as if he could reach out and touch the source –
But if the hunger is gone, how did he feed?
He must have taken from Ikkaku, he thinks, and the urge to curl up on the floor and wrap his arms around his knees is overwhelming. Must have; nothing else that he knows of will sate it. If he took from Ikkaku…
We did not take, he hears from that same place inside, louder than usual, and there’s the ghost of feathery touch on his shoulders which should be unsettling, but isn’t. He gave willingly, and we received.
Somehow, that thought is worse than all the others combined. Yumichika gives in, curls up under his bedcovers, and tries to get warm.
-
It's dusk by the time he wakes up, and Ikkaku still isn't back from wherever he went. Yumichika shouldn't worry, really; Ikkaku can take care of himself, and the only man who ever posed a threat is - well. Ikkaku is looking for him.
Yumichika is entirely unused to how hard he wishes he could curl into Ikkaku's chest again. He's used to the desire of course, sitting in the back of his head and settling into quiescence whenever Ikkaku would climb in beside him on cold nights. But it's as if that one night has unleashed a flood of want, and he can hardly think past it.
It's a lot like the hunger at its worst, but only for Ikkaku.
If he thinks about it, he remembers that it was Ikkaku who woke the hunger in him, too.
Yumichika steels himself, counts three, and makes himself stand, comb his still-damp hair, don a kimono. He has no more time for the mess that is his mind at present: there's been deep pools of horrors in his head for as long as he can remember, and he's become adept at stepping around them. This is just - another thing he doesn't want to immobilise himself thinking about. There is rent to be paid, and Yumichika will be damned if he's pathetic enough to just lie in bed and wait for it to be over, or something. If he'd gut himself for Ikkaku, he can do his fucking job to keep them both fed.
Even if it's harder, out here, because they're travelling up district and every time they do their money will be worth less, because there's not much demand for anything except a rough facefuck in an alley, and maybe he shouldn't have allowed himself to get used to the bed that he still misses.
At least it will be almost incomparable to his night with Ikkaku. Yumichika hadn't known that sex could be a desire and pleasure of the mind as well as the body.
There is little in the way of hunger even now, and that will make it harder still.
It's an ugly place, the bar he goes to - but then everything in the 78th is ugly. Yumichika will be happy if he never has to come back here. There are days where he seeks out rough places with violence and blood and brutish men, but today he would wish for the classiest place the 65th offers, because he can flirt on autopilot and find more people who want to admire than ruin him.
Everything would be easier if he could just cut out the part of him that wishes and wants and hopes. But he's tried that and everything went by in a numb haze, until eventually he found someone who wanted to slice his skin open, so he broke their neck with his thighs and finally, finally felt rushingly alive again.
The barman doesn't mind if he takes people to the storeroom and fucks them, as long as Yumichika pays him - in a blow job at the end of the night rather than money, fortunately, because he'll be damned if he's letting anyone else take a cut like that ever again.
He doesn't know what it is, but everyone wants him tonight. It seems he's a novelty; maybe he's more beautiful than they're used to in the whores round here, where almost everyone looks too thin or worn or has had their face broken a few times; maybe he looks classy, like some exotic thing from up district that they want to make a mess of; maybe it's just that he's good at his job and the walls are thin.
It's all easier than he'd thought it might be. At least, it is at first; slowly, his stomach and throat begin to clench, and he gags a bit unexpectedly, which hasn't happened in years. He combats this by getting drunk. It takes effort, but at least he doesn't have to pay. Even here people feel the need to make overtures with a pint of shitty beer they bought you, and for once Yumichika is grateful. He doesn't really understand - people generally feel no compulsion to comfort the pig they're about to slaughter for bacon, or leave behind cups of tea when they buy clothes at a stall.
He's spent most of his life around people, but there's still so much he doesn't understand. Maybe he would if he'd been taken in by a family, but he was too old for that, really, when he arrived. There's so much that Ikkaku has taught him - why people collect into families in the first place, what kissing is for, how it feels to know the smell of another person, and why sometimes people whisper names into his ear that aren't his, sounding like longing.
And maybe it's wrong or distasteful to think of Ikkaku while there’s another man's cock halfway down his throat, but it doesn't feel as unpleasant as he expected because Ikkaku and this man, this experience and that one, feel so entirely unconnected. Maybe that's because he's drunk and his face has started to go numb, but thinking of Ikkaku is safe and warm and affection (but oh, has he broken it? If he has then he has to fix it somehow, has to, he'll go mad if he doesn't and he hopes with all his strength that he'll get home to find Ikkaku asleep on the ratty futon because, if all else fails, he can just sit on Ikkaku and say things like, please, please make it all right, I'd do whatever you want, I don't know what you want so please tell me).
At least he (maybe) gets to be the only person for whom Ikkaku means safety, and that's much more than he would ever ask for, much more than he deserves.
At the end of the night there's a small group of them left. The barman locks the door and shoves tables together, and they all share him and pass him around till he's dizzy and short of breath and can't seem to focus on anything for long enough to make it out. People duck in and out of the circle, becoming temporary spectators and chucking coins at him. He gasps and swallows and blinks water out of his eyes, and this is why he left his makeup habit back in the 65th, he thinks, clutching the edges of the table because they remind him which way is up.
Walking home takes far longer than it should and no time at all, because all of the muscles that he can feel are hurting and the rest won't work, but he's drunk and time is relative. When he stumbles through the door, Ikkaku is there, and he whirls around immediately.
"Yumichika," he says, as if Yumichika's been missing for weeks or something. "I - what's up with you?"
Yumichika half-leans and half-falls forwards, siccing a mound of coins onto the table from the folds of his kimono, right in front of Ikkaku. "I'm drunk," he explains. "And I can't feel my legs." Then he leans his hands on the table to prop himself up, and makes himself meet Ikkaku's eyes despite the expression on Ikkaku's face. "But I made enough money that we can leave this ugly place." He tries to feel proud of collecting so much money in one night he could hardly carry it, even if it's in wooden bits that won't be worth a thing anywhere above the 76th, but he can't with the way Ikkaku's looking at him, as if he might be sick.
Ikkaku makes a reaching gesture but changes his mind as soon as he notices it, snatching his hand back. Yumichika looks at it and waits for Ikkaku to say something. Anything. He's beginning, almost, to wish he hadn't kissed Ikkaku again, or that he'd done whatever it was he was supposed to do, because he can remember a time when Ikkaku would have come round his side of the table, close but a few careful inches apart in case it was one of those nights where Yumichika couldn't bear to be touched, and said, "Let's go to bed, ne?"
"I didn't know if - I didn't know where you were," Ikkaku says. Which doesn't explain what's wrong, or why Ikkaku's looking at him like that. And maybe he's disgusting, but Ikkaku has held his hair back from his face while he threw up and cried after a bad night, one large hand making circles between his shoulderblades, so it can't be that. Ikkaku looks as him like you look at something ugly, and Yumichika's motivation to continue propping himself up liquefies. He ends up on the floor, too drunk and confused to remember why he shouldn't curl his arms around his legs and press his forehead against his knees.
He feels motion, and when he looks up, Ikkaku is sitting next to him, legs crossed. "I don't get you at all, sometimes," he says.
Everything is blurry, confusing, shifting in front of his eyes and inside his head. "You're looking at me like I'm ugly," he says, and it comes out slurred and indistinct. Ikkaku knows what he said, though; he can tell by the flinch. "You've never done that before."
"No," Ikkaku says. "It ain't - you just look so - " So what? Drunk? Dirty? "Miserable," Ikkaku finishes.
"I don't know what I did wrong," he says, to the floor. "Are you going to leave? Please, please don't leave, come with me back to the 65th and then you can go if you like - " he can't seem to stop talking, but Ikkaku interrupts.
"Oi, I ain't going anywhere!" Ikkaku says, and it's the first thing he's said in days that isn't hesitant or confused, so Yumichika has to believe him. "Don't even say that."
Yumichika swallows. "Then I have to fix it. I have to - you're going to have to tell me how, Ikkaku, I don't know what I did wrong but I'll do anything you want - "
"Don't say that either!" Ikkaku says, but he's started and now he can't stop, brokenly repeating himself, please, please tell me how to fix it tell me what I did wrong I needtofixitdon’tlookatmelikethatI'msorryI'msorryIloveyoudon'thatemeIloveyoucanwefixitdon'tleavepleasedon-tleave and at some point he stopped making any sense at all but it doesn't matter because he's lying against Ikkaku's chest again, and he panics momentarily because he's disgusting and tries to pull his hair back, or something, butt Ikkaku just says, "Fuck, Yumichika, none of this is your fault, alright? You ain't got to do anything." Finally, Yumichika manages to stop talking. He's making Ikkaku's tunic wet but Ikkaku doesn't seem to care.
"Let's go to bed," he says, helping Yumichika to stand, and maybe it's going to be all right.
Yumichika's half asleep, finally able to relax with Ikkaku's clothes tangled in his fists, when Ikkaku starts talking again. "As if I'd go anywhere: the hell would I do without you? Y'know, I never had a pair of shoes till I met you. Still can't get used to socks..." He clears his throat. "Uh, anyway, I'm sorry. I was tryin' to...eh, it doesn't matter now. I fucked it. You don't got to do anything to fix it except still be here in the morning."
Yumichika's too tired to say anything, so he just makes a tighter fist.
-
Ikkaku is still there in the morning, tunic half-hanging off him because apparently Yumichika has been holding on to it all night.
It's been a long time since he was last so appallingly drunk; people buy him drinks all the time, and his tolerance is high. It took a lot of effort to become so graceless and incoherent, he remembers, and then he made a fool of himself all over Ikkaku. Still, Ikkaku is here, groaning and stumbling groggily towards wakefulness, and maybe things are better now, so perhaps he can be forgiven.
The first thing Ikkaku says, after looking at Yumichika for ten seconds straight, bleary and trying to focus, is, "You smell like shit beer."
And worse besides. Yumichika remembers how disgusting he is, and shivers. "I'm going for a shower," he says, standing quickly, but Ikkaku catches his hand.
"Let's leave today. Head for the 77th," he says.
Yumichika turns back round, smiling, and says "I'll pack."
So they go. They go, and don't stop for more than a day or two, while Ikkaku goes out and asks around and Yumichika goes to work.
-
He has to tell Ikkaku, of course. Has to.
He tries it on: I found out where Kenpachi No Zaraki has gone; he’s in the Seireitei.
Ikkaku is going to want to go immediately, of course. And Yumichika can’t say that he has any particular desire to stay in this particular place, or even in this district, but - the Seireitei. But - I dunno. Maybe he could teach me a few things, Yumichika remembers, and that sounds like maybe they’re going to stay. Are they going to stay? And do what - become shinigami?
He shudders. Shinigami cunts, Ikkaku said the first time they ever spoke. Not a single thing Yumichika has ever seen has disproved this. They’re powerful and dangerous and Yumichika would feel safer sleeping in an alley in the 70s than in a bed in the Seireitei, surrounded by all those tall cold powerhouses of reiatsu. Some of them were never even born in the living world, a little removed from really being people. He can feel them, sometimes, when they visit whichever district he’s in, and he feels a little like a tuning fork, lying in his bed as the precise tone of their reiatsu keeps him awake from miles away.
We could be powerful and dangerous too, he hears, and the sound is - breathless, urgent in a way he doesn’t recognise. We are already powerful and dangerous.
He’s not, honestly, sure why he’s even thinking about this. There wasn’t a question about which choice he’d make - and it was a choice. He’s made unpleasant choices before, often enough to know that it’s always a choice, even if only one of the options are bearable. The only option in this case that is bearable involves following Ikkaku wherever Ikkaku wants them to go, and that’s all there is to it.
Yumichika has always found that the ones called “Hard Choices” are the easiest.
So he sits down without preamble while Ikkaku is getting through breakfast, and says, “He’s in the Seireitei. He went and killed the last Kenpachi, so he’s captain of the eleventh now.” Ikkaku looks right at him, and puts down his rice. “Probably so he can fight as much as he likes; there’s no one here to match him.”
Ikkaku frowns. “He’s gonna protect this shitty place? I don’t see it.” He stands and picks up his sword - apparently they’re leaving right now, which - well, fine. It’s morning, they’ve both eaten, and they can make it to the next District by nightfall.
“I take it we’re going after him, then?” He says, and he can’t keep a smile off his face, because this is going to be one hell of a trip, but Ikkaku looks positively gleeful.
“Fuck, yes. He could be in hell for all I care.” He tucks his sword into his belt, and Yumichika mimics him, heading to his room to grab his handful of things. He keeps having to leave them behind, and supposes he’s been losing all ties to this place for years.
It’s not until they’re in a bar at the start of the 62nd that Yumichika manages to ask about the thing that’s been bothering him most. “So...are we going to become Shinigami? Just to get to Kenpachi?”
Ikkaku tilts his head. “It’s the only way to get in,” he says, and Yumichika wonders, suddenly, how much he knows about Shinigami, and how he knows it.
“But - ” He’s not sure how to ask this one. We’re not going to have to fight to the death like Kenpachi, are we? Is just tempting fate. “Will we be let in? How do they pick shinigami?”
Ikkaku shrugs. “Mostly it’s assholes from the first twenty districts. But they’ll take anyone with decent reiatsu.” He looks at Yumichika intently for a minute, and it’s the same look he gives to opponents he’s sizing up; he’s never looked at Yumichika like this before. “Anyway, you got nothing to be worried about. You’ve felt shinigami around: don’t you know you’ve got more reiatsu than most? Your sword work’s fucking vicious too, you’d cut most of ‘em to pieces soon as look at you.”
Yumichika blinks. He hasn’t ever given much thought to his own reiatsu. He feels himself blush a little, a counterpoint to the smug I told you so in his mind. He must admit, there’s an appeal to spending the rest of his life fighting.
Because it is the rest of his life; if they become shinigami now, they’ll die shinigami. He looks at Ikkaku. Well, Ikkaku is better than him, so Yumichika will die first, likely. So that’s all right.
He swallows, because there is one last thing to take care of. “Cut my hair,” he says.
Ikkaku’s eyes bug out absurdly, like a caricature, as if this is the most ridiculous thing Yumichika could possibly say. “Eh? But - you - you love your hair, and I…” He looks down. “We don’t have any scissors.”
Yumichika rolls his eyes. “It’s not going to be any use to me if I’m a shinigami. Just match here,” he says, indicating the shorter pieces at his shoulders. “And use your sword.”
Ikkaku looks panicked. “But - what if I fuck it up?”
Yumichika pins him with a glare that is half manufactured, honestly, because if Ikkaku’s dragging him to the Seireitei then payback is fair. “Don’t.”
“And you’ll still speak to me in the morning if I don’t get it perfect?”
Hair grows, Ikkaku. Yumichika smiles pleasantly. “Of course,” he says, and Ikkaku swallows nervously. He’d laugh, but - it doesn’t seem like the time for it. His hair is a part of his body, part of his body language, and some percent of the reason why he’s so good at his job, why so many people wanted. Such pretty hair has been said to him so, so many times.
There’s a mirror in their room, which isn’t surprising because this is the 62nd, home of debauchery. He should be right at home, but isn’t. Ikkaku makes a determined expression as he stands behind Yumichika and undoes his hair tie. Yumichika shivers when Ikkaku combs his fingers through it, and if there were ever a reason not to do this it would be that feeling. Get on with it, Ikkaku, before I change my mind.
Ikkaku picks up his sword, and Yumichika has to close his eyes.
He feels…lighter, afterwards. The ends of his hair brush the back of his neck, and he runs his fingers through it. It feels straight enough; he feels bereft. He offers a smile, though, because Ikkaku appears to be holding his breath. “Thank you,” he says, and Ikkaku deflates.
He wipes his brow. “Right. Well, I’m going to bed.”
Yumichika looks at himself in the mirror. It’s going to take some getting used to. It’s only the first of many things that he’s going to have to get used to.
And then, so definite and loud that he’s momentarily certain that the voice is coming from right behind him rather than his head, a verdict: Beautiful.
He removes his sword from his belt, places it by the bed, and curls up next to Ikkaku. Tomorrow, they’ll be getting up early again, but Ikkaku rolls over and mashes his face against Yumichika’s shoulder, and he’s all right.