An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Relationship: Kurotsuchi Nemu & Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez
Rating: Teen and Up Audiences
Word Count: 2.1k
Fandom: Bleach
Nemu is trying to process what’s happening. She’s alive. She’s not supposed to be alive. Mayuri-sama was in trouble, and then she threw him to safety, and then she—
(Death was more painful than she thought it would be. She had thought—hoped—after so much suffering in life, death would give her the small mercy of being peaceful. It seems she was not so lucky.)
-
In which Nemu must navigate her life-after-death, including but not limited to moving to a new place, beginning a new job, and sharing a bunk with an ex-Arrancar.
-rolls in- Pumpkin here! Hope you're having a great day! I hope I haven't missed it! I could request Grimmjow having cat like tendacies (purring, enjoying tickles behind the ears climbing on ones lap for attention, that sort of stuff, ) please! Thank you *¬*
Hiya Pumpkin! This was a hard request, not gonna lie! Grimmjow isn’t the softest of kitties, so I hope I managed to keep the balance between the cade side and the grumpy Espada side a little bit intact! It’s lowkey modern AU, but not elaborately worked out, so interpret it as you wish. Hope you enjoy!! <3
Grimmjow having catlike tendencies HC
2nd person. GN reader. slight modern AU. No warnings
If you manage to tame the beast that Grimmjow is, if you manage to capture his attention and get together with him, rest assured that he is NEEDY. Capital letters.
He follows you around the house, almost toddler-like questioning what you're doing. He's not dumb, he knows what you're doing, he just wants some attention and will use this as a first thing to get you to pay attention.
If that doesn't work, his next instinct is to just lean onto you, softly bump into you… anything that can be a physical indication of "oi y/n pay attention to me".
He walks around grumpy 99% of the time, so imagine both of you guys' surprise when you found out he was super touch starved and very much into physical affection.
In the beginning of the relationship he'd always wave away such affection, saying it was nothing for him, way too soft and way too sappy, he was following other instincts and those weren't "snuggle up to my partner".
You one day just mindlessly started petting his hair and he surprised himself by leaning into your touch, eventually emanating a noise that you could only describe as purring.
Don’t ask him about it though, he will vehemently deny any purring coming from him. You know better though.
He does like it a lot, so whenever you’re on the couch, watching TV or just reading a book, he will come up to you, and either just place his head in your lap, lean on your shoulder and nuzzle your neck or literally grab your hand and place it onto his head, and he won’t stop doing these actions until you give in and play with his hair and softly scratch his scalp.
Especially behind the ears, that’s the spot that makes him instantly melt into your hands, his usual scowl replaced by a calm expression that makes his nagging more than worth it.
Other catlike tendencies he displays include, but are not limited to:
Hogging all the blankets and loving the fire or whatever spot in the house is warm. He doesn’t care if you have ‘your own spot’ at the dinner table or on the couch, if the sun is shining on ‘your spot’, he will claim it as his and enjoy the warmth of the rays.
The moment you open up something in the kitchen to snack he will be right behind you, kissing your cheek to distract you before snatching the snack away and eating it himself.
He can also spend extremely long periods of time just observing you from across the room. If you didn’t know him well enough, you’d think it’s creepy, but the way he actually notices and remembers your rituals is endearing and comes in handy.
Whenever you’re having a bad day, he will instantaneously feel it, pick you up and drag you to bed for snuggles. He’s not very good at giving affection and he’s even worse at saying the right things to make it all better, but semi-aggressively claiming you as his and snuggling up to you is one thing he definitely can do!
What’s something like really specific that you really enjoy about ur bleachfic. Like something that’s like. Self indulgence
oh god. bleachfic is like. uh. imagine you have the chance to go back. save everyone. but you get back and you realize. if you save them, if you protect them. well. they'll never be the people that you knew and loved and cared for and respected. but. you do it anyways. you do it because they deserved better they deserved so much better. and as much as youll miss the people they would have been, you love those people too much to make them go through that again just for your own selfishness. you wish you could be selfish. you miss them.
at the same time its about someone who crashes into your life and offers trust and safety and protection and you dont know who he is, but he knows you and you know that youve made mistakes. mistakes that have hurt this guy. but for some reason he still trusts you, still loves you. and you cant figure out why. maybe you dont need to figure out why. maybe for once, you can allow yourself this.
its all from the pov of the second guy. btw. bleachfic makes me fucking insane. but yeah its fr about the unconditional love and trust and also about the fuckoff powerful guy who gives it to you
Summary: Strange hollow attacks prompt an investigation, and the 10th division’s third seat unfortunately finds herself at the center of it. Perhaps the closer quarters will lead her cold captain to warm up to her a bit.
Pairing: OC/Toshiro
Chapter: Guilt and Guidance
Fire engulfs my dreams as usual, and I sit up swiftly, immediately collapsing inward on myself as my puncture wound throbs with the quick movement. Gentle sunlight drifts in from the one window in the room. Huh, I guess I did manage to get a full night’s sleep for once.
I let myself lay back for a few minutes, slowly waking up and settling into the new day. I’ll have to write a report on last night’s mission and get it to Lieutenant Matsumoto today. Maybe if I get it written up and on her desk early enough the captain will actually see it today. It’ll probably be best to get whatever disciplinary actions that are coming my way over and done with.
Hinote would probably say I’m worrying too much, that Captain Hitsugaya is cold, but understanding. Hinote wasn’t in charge of the mission though, and it’s not his fault that Hamada’s still in Squad 4’s infirmary.
Resolving myself to deal with whatever may come, I push myself up and off of my futon. I’m at my small closet in a few steps.
Ignoring the casual yukatas and my one kimono at the back of the closet, I pull out another shihakusho and get changed. As I move around, I note that my pain has abated significantly, but it’s still present enough to make me hesitate on certain motions. I start to braid my hair down my back, but lifting my arms constantly is straining the wound, so I opt to twist my hair up into a tight bun instead, pinning it in place. A quick glance at my mirror tells me that some of my color has returned, but it’s obvious I’m still not at a hundred percent.
Oh well, paperwork waits for no one. Except Lieutenant Matsumoto maybe. Bending over to slip on my tabi and sandals causes another jolt of pain, but I push it aside. I’m steadier on my feet than I was yesterday as I leave my room and head down the staircase to the main floor of the barracks. The heavy wooden doors to the front and back of the grounds stand open as they usually do during the day, and I nod at the handful of people up and moving about.
Stepping out onto the back portico, I survey the inner courtyard of the squad grounds. The three long buildings that house the training hall, mess hall and offices stretch out in front of me. The open air training grounds are on my left, surrounded by a scattering of outbuildings, and the two small houses for the captain and lieutenant stand on my right. The houses occupy their own little courtyard, with a small privacy wall encircling them, but I can still see most of the grounds from here. The largest garden in the squad grounds occupies the space behind Captain Hitsugaya’s home.
I wonder if he’s still there or if he’s already in his offices. Either way, my destination doesn’t change.
A few squad members greet me on their way to the mess hall as I descend the portico steps and head towards the office building. I slow my pace slightly as the puncture wound pulls with each step, but I’m not having trouble otherwise. In just a few moments, I step onto the wrap-around porch of the office building and pass through the open doors of the central hall. Taking the staircase in front of me as quickly as I can, I start to turn to the left when movement at the other end of the hallway catches my eye.
I spot snow-white hair and the back of an equally white haori as I pause at the top of the stairs. He’s moving to step into the spacious corner office he shares with Rangiku when he looks up, turquoise eyes meeting mine. His expression is neutral as he nods, acknowledging my presence, and steps into his office.
The moment he’s out of sight I release the breath I was holding. He must not have heard about the past night’s events yet if he looked that relaxed. Well, maybe relaxed wasn’t the right term. He was no more formal and reserved than normal at least. Despite that, it was like I had been paralyzed by that notorious, piercing gaze. I found him intimidating, sure, but I’d never frozen up like that in front of him. He was my captain and we’d worked together plenty of times over the years. It must just be my nerves about the report getting to me. That or the lingering tension from last night’s fight.
Fanfic: Witness Protection Program Ch 1, Bleach | FanFiction
Hey, I just wanted to spread to tumblr a fanfic that I really enjoyed. I think that it deserves more recognition than it got. This ichiruki fic is basically a police oc. I just wanted to spread the love. It has some humor but at heart is an adventure story. Plus, it’s completed. Thanks everyone!
“She was a girl made of shattered stars, but the stars were burning out; and he was the night, left blank and bare.” - @danwilds
Thoughts on how Hisana and Byakuya came to be, and then fell apart. They were something sad, and beautiful, and tragic. A red string does not always guarantee a happy ending.
For @cooliogirl101 Even though Hisana wound up sounding a little like a mob boss.
She was a girl made of shattered stars,’
…
Hisana is not a good person.
Maybe she could be great one day, but she will never call herself good.
She is ten years old when she dies, her baby sister held close. She is ten years old when she first sets eyes on the seventy-eighth district of the rukongai, Rukia clutched to her chest.
She is fifteen years old when she loses all hope, and leaves her sister behind in the empty vacant streets.
She is nineteen when she begins to claw for something more than just existing.
She is thirty-something when she begins to succeed.
But she had been sixteen-and-a-day when she swore that one day she would find her baby sister and apologize.
…
‘with fire in her veins;’
…
She fights and claws her way out of the lesser districts, determined to do more than just survive.
She learns to step on people to get where she wants to go, and not apologize.
She learns to be cunning. Learns to be clever.
She tames people to her will, and scatters her little birds throughout the rukongai.
And when she has done all this, then she has to learn how to be kind again.
Somewhere along the way, she had forgotten how to be kind. But she did not forget her promise.
Her ears are open for whispers of her sister, but the whispers do not come, no matter how far her little birds fly.
…
‘She shined brighter,’
…
She shines brightly.
But it is a cold light, masked carefully and hidden away.
It's not the sort of brightness fueled by kindness, but a steely sense of determination that refuses to burn out and fade away.
It's the kind of brightness that creates the shadows you so carefully avoid.
In this, brightness is a polite term for noticeable.
And oh, she is noticed.
…
‘than anyone could.’
…
It takes a special kind of person to build from the ground up without involving the yakuza.
There’s just something about her; it echoes in the air around her, and there is something underlying in her firm gaze. Calm, but unyielding.
Girls like her have lightning in their souls and chaos in their bones.
…
…
‘He was a lost boy with hollow eyes,’
…
For all that he knows his place in the world – future head of the Kuchki, future Captain of the Sixth, future warrior and master, soldier and father – Byakuya is lost.
He’s been lost since his parents died.
Lost because while his future seems to be set in stone, his life written out for him by the clan, he doesn’t know what it means to be just Byakuya.
Like the lights are on, but this house is not a home.
…
‘He was the night;’
…
He is calm, and he is careful. He is also poised, regal, charming and deviously dangerous.
He passes through his training with a single-minded determination, determination to succeed.
He is driven – more so than the freezing snow, or lashing sandstorm.
This alienates him from his peers. Where they joke and laugh, and pace themselves, he breezes on ahead, so eager to leave the last remnants of his childhood (even when he is an adult already) in the past.
He blends into the shadows, quiet and unseen, yet always waiting, always there, eyes and ears open to the world.
…
‘Dark,’
…
It’s a lonely existence, being set apart from the crowd.
But he cannot afford to hand out his affection like leaves on the breeze; not when every smiling face seeking favour could be hiding a knife in the dark.
The Academy days’ pass by in the blink of an eye, and he begins the long climb to the top; heading the words that his Grandfather told him so long ago.
…
‘but filled with stars.’
…
It is not completely without it’s perks.
There are bright patches here and there; if he is careful to edge his way around the twisting rotten roots of old-world politics.
And then, one day, the brightest star of all practically falls right into his lap.
…
…
‘They were bare legs,’
…
How they met did not matter.
How they fell in love cannot be explained.
Two such very different people, but perhaps she set his soul alight? Perhaps she blazed bright enough for the both of them? It had to have been something special for worlds like theirs to collide.
Or perhaps it was something as ordinary as can be.
We are all stories in our own right. Unprinted, unbound; just wild words dancing on the winds of time. Theirs was not written down, and so we will never know.
But it was special. Because it was theirs.
…
‘entangled in dirty bedsheets;’
…
It was not proper for a noble to marry a commoner. Not proper for a man with such standing as Byakuya to turn away every eligible young lady in the seireitei and set his cap at a girl like Hisana. But he did it anyway, saw something in her that nobody else could see.
Anybody with a brain should have seen this coming, for all his icy exterior, he was (grudging) friends with the Shihouin empress – the flash goddess Yoruichi. For all his cold stares and frigid words, his zanpakuto was a shimmering example of beauty bound up in a deadly dance. For all his birth and breeding, he had the heart of a poet and the soul of a romantic.
How could he not defy all, and shatter the rules for a girl like Hisana.
…
(they chose each other.)
…
He chose her, and she chose him.
Was that all that should be needed, for them to be husband and wife?
One might think so.
A red string might have bound their fates together, a blessing from the Gods.
But the Gods have no power over free will, or self-destruction.
And even fate, embroidered with delicate red, cannot guarantee a happy ending.
…
…
‘She was a girl made of shattered stars,’
…
Hisana is bright and alive. She refuses to be stagnant like the noble clans, who can wait patiently, play out games of politics while the universe passed them by.
She is vibrant in her own way, incapable of sitting still.
There is a gentleness to her, one that was learnt, it did not come to her naturally.
Or perhaps it had once, before life had taken that from her?
There is a titanium spine, and an iron will hidden beneath her smile too.
She burns so fiercely, and searches relentlessly. She never says what for. But she is a girl a woman on a mission.
[He worries sometimes, that she will work too hard and burn herself out.
He did not think it would be so literal though.]
…
‘but the stars were burning out;’
…
It starts with an extra hour in bed every morning. Before she had been up with the sun, but she was tired these days. Long nights, longer days. Desperate longing, the confusion and grief and self-hate that had taken root in her soul was destroying her.
Souls are delicate things; tough and resilient and near impossible to truly break, but delicate all the same. They were not designed to be at war with themselves.
And Hisana is fighting a losing battle.
…
‘And he was the night,’
…
His love is not enough to save her, and oh how that burned. How that stung.
Why was it not enough?
[“I'm sorry for being so dependent on you even in the end.” She says, and he wants to protest. She has never been a burden; her illness is not something she can help. The illness saps her spark away, leaving an echo of the woman he loves.
“I'm sorry for not being able... to return the love that you've given me whole-heartedly.” She tells him, and he wants to protest. He’s seen the love she shows.
It’s in the soft smile she gives him in the mornings, it’s in the movement of her arm when she pours tea for him on a winter’s night. It’s in the sound of her footsteps as she approaches him with a blanket when he’s been up late working on paperwork.
“The five years in which I spent with you... were like a dream... Byakuya-sama...”
‘Don’t leave me,’ he wants to beg.]
Why couldn’t she have asked for help? He would have done anything she could have asked.
But she did not ask, not until she breathed her last breath. A whispered plea, as the tiny spark inside her flickered in the wind, and then could not last any longer.
And then he was alone.
…
‘left blank and bare…’
…
What was the point in anything, when Hisana’s body dissolves into reishi? Because for all that he had loved her, really and deeply truly loved her with a fire he had not thought to possess; she could not allow herself to return that love. Had thought she did not deserve something like that.
What a silly woman she had been.
Had. The thought chokes the breath in his throat.
Everybody deserves to be loved, at least once in their lives.
And so, decades later, he walks through the halls of the Academy on an errand and passes by a girl who looks so much like his beloved.
If he were an ordinary man, perhaps, he might have been a storm of thoughts and emotions – all coming together like lightning and thunder and waves twisted into a tempest and locked away in an ornamental tea pot.
But Byakuya is a law unto himself, and he soldiers on with a relentlessness bordering on dangerous.
And then the next morning, he sets out to adopt his beloved’s little sister for his own.
Rukia – Rukia who dances through her zanjutsu kata with a serene grace, Rukia who was raised in the rukongai as a peasant – becomes a Kuchiki, and Byakuya wonders if Hisana would have been happy.
…
…
[Unseen by mortal eyes, the red string wrapped about his wrist does not flutter listlessly, but waits patiently, as strong and bright as ever, for his soul to collide with hers once more.
Silly Shinigami, Fate sighs. Whoever said that death was the end?
It is not. They will meet again, will write their own destiny once more.
Maybe they will learn from their mistakes. Maybe then, they will get it right.]
Notes
I used to hate Hisana. Her last words were so cruel (in my opinion). But Coolio101 made me think.
And I wonder... maybe Hisana thought she didn't deserve Byakuya's love. Maybe she heard the whispers and saw the glares, and just didn't have the strength anymore to ignore them. Maybe she wanted him to hate her so he would move on and find love again. Maybe she didn’t want him to mourn her for the rest of his life.
The truth is, I don't know. All I know is he loved her. And that's enough for me.
Love isn't always fair. It's not always beautiful. It doesn't guarantee a happy ending.
But it's ours. It's human. It's imperfect. It's the soft smile when you say goodbye, it's having the kettle on the second somebody is through the door, it's putting a blanket over someone's shoulders… it's letting them fight their own battles, and wrap their own bandages. Love is a thousand different indescribable things, unique to its owner.
Okay, so this probably does not make sense, but in my defense I am about two days and three stressful mistakes away from a meltdown or a manic depressive attack. Or possibly an anxiety attack, at this point it’s a little hard to tell which way the wind is blowing, but all three fucking suck balls. Okay?
So, here we go. Insanity awaits. Down the fucking fox-hole and all: “In which Kitsune lore is not just lore, and the Seireitei is in for a rude awakening. Also, Aizen’s plan is derailed.”
In the Seireitei, Kitsune are considered little more than a myth. So rarely seen, so rarely mentioned. In the Rukongai, stories of the Kitsune are everywhere, some see them as a blessing, some as an omen. But nobody really knows where they live or what their game is. In truth, the Kitsune just like to have fun.
Nobody really gets Ichimaru Gin. His manners make no sense, his idea of entertainment is alien, the ever-present grin on his face creeps people out and he has an unhealthy fascination with persimmons. The truth is, he’s not like other people. He’s a fox. A nine-tailed one to be specific. Okay, so that’s a lie, he’s only got six tails, but he’s still young and a prodigy in everything he does.
[The first time he ever saw Rangiku, he thought she was a kitsune too, the shade of her hair and her enthusiasm for persimmon seemed a sure-fire-thing, but in the end she was just a human. He doesn’t care though; he loves her anyway. He can’t wait to introduce her to his family. Not yet, but someday…]
His family, his skulk is rambunctious and wild, ever-growing.
He has a younger brother, three actually: Kabuto, Sai, Shin; and an adopted sister named Anko. They live together in a burrow (and when they say Burrow, they mean on a scale more like a Hobbit Hole. They are kitsune, they do nothing by halves.) with Orochimaru. Later they are joined by Sakumo and his cub Kakashi – once Orochimaru finally pulls his head out of his arse and admits that he likes the other Dog Fox as more than just a friend.
[Cousin Jiraiya laughs himself sick – no you can’t prove that the boys had anything to do with that.]
Their cousins, the Uzumaki (plus the Senju and Namikaze who were crazy enough to marry into the hellion skulk) are just as wild. Mito leads the pack, her younger sisters: Kushina and Karin at her flanks, their brother Kurama never far behind. It’s a matriarchal bunch, which suits Mito’s happy-go-lucky mate, and Kushina’s ditzy blonde just fine. Of course Mito’s children: Tsunade and Nawaki, and Kushina’s son Naruto would take after their mother’s. Not a one of them is red-haired, but they’re all just as hot-tempered as the three sisters.
Across the way are the Uchiha, every one of them dark as night, as graceful and mysterious as the moon… until Hashirama’s little brother Tobirama pushes and needles Madara into snapping, and fire blazes across the fields.
[They have a love-hate relationship, and it’s best to just stay out of the way and make sure that the kits don’t wander in on an NSFW moment, because the term love-hate is not just a turn of phrase when it comes to them.]
Mikoto, the current matriarch can often be found causing merry hell with the Uzumaki sisters now that her own cubs are grown, much to the chagrin of her mate Fugaku who despairs over her friendship with the hellions.
Sasuke takes to sniffing around the Seireitei in fox form and winds up pining after the pretty lieutenant of the fifth who’s more than happy to feed her new fox friend. She’s a really good cook okay, and she doesn’t fuss over the fact that he eats all the tomatoes like the others. Gin thinks it’s hilarious, and is often joking about Hinamori’s boyfriend much to her confusion and Hitsugaya’s irritation – how can he give a shovel talk if he can’t find the bloke?
Itachi spends his days sleeping on the roof of the fourth division because that way nobody else will bother him, and Kabuto becomes known as the very pretty sleek silver fox who follows Unohana-taicho everywhere (isn’t that cute), and nobody really takes him seriously for ages because he lets the trainee nurses rub his belly and scratch his ears – until of course, some moron from the eleventh gets a little too aggressive, and makes poor Hanataro drop something important. Then Kabuto is all over that shit, ripping them to pieces with extremely unnerving precision because how could a fox possibly know where to cause the most pain with the least effort and still leave the victim very much breathing? The Seireitei have evidently never had to listen to chicken farmers bitch about a whole henhouse of dead chickens.
Aizen's plan is derailed in a pretty funny way. Basically Aizen follows Gin home one day and Papa Orochimaru (don't ask) is like wtf, you don't science like that bro, here, lemme show you. and so after Aizen is bullied into giving Ran her bit of soul back, he spends his weekends learning how to science like a boss from Oro instead of plotting world domination.
There may have been more to this, but to be honest I just can’t be arsed to remember the rest.
