(Right, so... I meant three more chapters from where it's at on AO3.)
Also, in case anyone is paying any attention at all, lol... I caught a continuity error in this chapter. Way back, I said Grimmjow had only lived in Karakura for 10 years. Here though, I say he grew up in the house Ichigo is visiting. I can't remember why. There was a reason. In this chapter though, I've now decided he's grown up here. Proof I don't know what I'm doing.
Juni

The first round of the playoffs had been fast, bruising and electric. Sixteen teams. Four rounds. Each series, best of seven. Roughly a game every two days. First team to win four games would move on. With a much needed break if you swept the series.

And they had.

After a season of hockey, players were, without argument, battered and bruised, malnourished and lacking sleep. To the players, the playoffs were an extra workout after you'd just run a marathon. But the teams weren't giving up. And apparently, neither was winter.

It had been a cold and snow-heavy season. Record breaking even. And today was a day that would keep everyone but the foolhardy inside.

It was early April. And second round playoff games would begin in a week. The Reapers had some time to recoup, relax, and catch some rest. Many of them would take to eating for two, just trying to retain muscle mass. This late in the season, it was often hard to keep weight on with the intense schedule they kept.

Most of the Reapers were enjoying their first real day off.

Two were not.

X X X

Ichigo held the partially deflated bag of loose frozen produce, that was wrapped in a dish towel, to his cheek while the TV in the foreground flickered with meaningless images. The sound was down beyond hearing, his apartment too quiet and still, a sharp contrast to his racing thoughts and foul mood, while he fought to ignore the silence-shattering hum of his phone.

Dark amber eyes glared in empty disappointment at the screen as it lit up, vibrating across the table while he resisted the urge to reach out and actually pick it up. Or smash it.

He could see what the message was.

Sorry about earlier.

And though the words were there, they were far less impact-full than they aught to have been - in person. And the damage was already done.

He fumed for about three more seconds before he picked it up to re-read the message. To see if there was anything more. As if it would help.

Knee bouncing with angry energy, and the cold bag shifting against his cheek, he set his phone down again.

God fucking damn it.

It was supposed to be a break, time to relax and regroup before they entered the next series of playoff games in just over a week.

Break - his ass.

Ichigo couldn't have predicted their day ending in such a fucking mess. Their relationship changing so violently.

He should have listened to his gut; that warning feeling he had when, in the locker room, after their last big game, Grimmjow's phone had rung.

It had been Mrs Jagerjaquez, calling to congratulate her boy and the rest of the team on their latest win. And to invite Grimmjow and Ichigo over for an evening snack the next day. A snack that came with a small caveat.

X X X

"Hey Ma." Grimmjow stood in nothing but a grin and a damp towel, one that was busy doing a long, slow reveal before falling to the floor as he squeegeed the water from his hair with one hand and pressed his phone to his tipped ear with the other. "Yeah, thanks. Guys are ecstatic."

Ichigo tried not to watch as Grimmjow gave up on the heavy wet towel when it rolled at the edges and sagged down over his hip bones, hanging off his half hard dick for a moment before leaping dramatically to its death and plastering itself to the floor. Ichigo was right there with it. He was not alone in looking on though, as several of the team watched with amusement.

And Grimmjow simply did not care.

As the towel hit the floor, Ichigo hurried his eyes away, not just from that dick, but from the whole damn post card perfect scenery. He was something of a pro now, at masking it all, the reflex to act normal and unaffected well exercised. He couldn't laugh with the others, though. Couldn't muster it through the drama in his head and the ongoing concern for his partner; the bruises he could see and the ones he couldn't, the glow of excitement in his eyes that was tamped down by things Grimmjow kept under lock and key. So, he rolled his eyes at his teammates instead and deemed it a success when they laughed in agreement at their showman in all his exhibitionistic glory.

Grimmjow wasn't actually alone in his nudeness. No one was really getting dressed yet. They were all winners and wired and just enjoying the moment. The suits and coaches had flooded into the room to make short speeches and celebrate briefly, but had moved on when the guys started to dump their gear and rinse off.

They'd been bantering for a minute or two since then, a group of them around Grimmjow, before the phone call had moved them on as well. And Ichigo, garbed in his own damp towel, had wondered hard about Grimmjow. And not for the first time.

Was it was weird, talking to your mother on the phone while naked?

Yes. Yes it was. Even for Grimmjow.

He watched as Grimmjow's demeanour quickly turned from juvenile and aggressively happy to a little stern. Ichigo's concern rose in time. His first thought was for Grimmjow's mother. She was an older lady. She'd turned 80 a few weeks ago. And he hoped she wasn't having a health issue.

But it took another quick glance from Grimmjow to send Ichigo's stomach into a real tumble. It was quick, almost gone before it had fully formed, the look that flitted over Grimmjow's face. But the look was, for all Ichigo could make of it, horrified. He was just close enough, over the chatter of the other players, to pick up what Grimmjow was saying on his end.

"He's probably busy. I can get someone else to..."

Grimmjow suddenly tucked the phone a little closer, an involuntary reaction that Ichigo recognized. One that might have been cute. Except that it meant something was making him uncomfortable. And something about that was making Ichigo's nerves nervous.

"No. Ma. It ain't a problem. Of course, yeah, I'll ask... I'll ask, okay? I'm not promis- Yeah. I know. Love y-... Yeah. I will. Love you. Bye."

When Grimmjow ended the call, he looked flustered and frankly, a little pissed off, glaring past the device in his hand for several curious beats as he fought some apparent internal squabble.

And then Grimmjow had looked right at Ichigo. A little darkly, if Ichigo were to describe it to a therapist.

"You busy tomorrow night?"

Ichigo kept calm, blinked twice, and tried not to cough out his tongue.

"Why?" he asked carefully. Calmly, while not staring at Grimmjow's everything. Grimmjow reached for his clothes - thank fuck - only glancing over in a half interested way just long enough to explain.

"Ma's got a new TV needs hanging, 'n some shelving 'n she wants me to put it together for her." He shook out the black cotton boxer briefs that would fit his form in ways Ichigo couldn't describe. "Wants to know if you want to help. Shouldn't take very long." He stooped forward, smooth skin of his hard abdominals folding into only a few whisper thin lines while he lifted each foot into the legs of his briefs. Grimmjow bending forward at the waist and slipping into clothes was distractingly hypnotic.

"Oh. Don't they have... people for that?" Ichigo said intelligently, assuming for a moment that the five star enforcer would rather pay to have someone do a menial task like that for him. But he took no offence.

"Nah. It's just a few screws. She likes it when I do shit like that for her, you know." He tugged the briefs snugly into place and finished the show off with an audible snap of the waistband against the hard indent of his lower hip, unaware of his audience of one. "She wants to make us a little dinner as payment."

Ichigo didn't answer. Couldn't really... Abs and bending and 'make us dinner' all screeching through an intersection simultaneously and colliding in a hot mess. He couldn't think around it suddenly. To add to his troubles, his eyes, having a covert mind of their own, were darting from his own stuff to Grimmjow's now well contained staff... fuck... stuff... as casually as you please without his conscious permission. So much for being a pro.

"I'm sure you're busy. But I promised I'd ask."

The comment brought his mental train lurching back onto the tracks, and Ichigo wasn't sure why alarm bells were suddenly going off in his head, just that they were. Grimmjow's mother's house might have something to do with it.

There were no players lingering in the short stretch of bench between them at that moment, where Ichigo had been left standing. The hoards had turned their attention to the centre of the room, where much of the group was yelling out a cheer.

He felt scared down to his bones all of a sudden. And if there was such a thing as a counter cheer, Ichigo nailed it. His mom was fine. Grimmjow was mostly fine. But put them together in his childhood home for dinner and Ichigo was sure he could come up with at least ten things he absolutely had to do tomorrow night...

"Uhm... Yeah... Well... I guess. I mean, if I'm not busy."

Or not.

A cool glance his way, and the enforcer's brow folded down in curt dismissal as he turned his full attention towards his hockey bag, searching for more clothes to put on.

"S'all good. I'll tell'er yer busy."

Ichigo actually felt dismissed. And too naked to be having any more conversations with Grimmjow about his mother. He covered the short space back to his end of the bench in a few strides and dropped his towel. Quickly stepping into briefs and slim fitting khakis. He lifted a shirt up over his head and pulled it down. It seemed the conversation was over. Except that it was hardly.

"I mean, you may be a hot shit on ice but can you even work a screwdriver?" came the rumble. Blandly and with a large side of snideness.

Ichigo came to a halt inside his shirt, freezing at the taunt. He was baited and hooked and in trouble and he knew it, but what the heck. He finished working it on and smoothed it out.

"You know what..." He picked up his towel and sidled over to his partner, folding it absentmindedly before dropping it on the bench for housekeeping to pick up. "I'm in." As he strolled on by, he leaned into Grimmjow's side just long enough to drawl... "I don't mind helping out Mrs Jaegerjaquez with her new tv. And with a son like hers, she probably needs all the help she can get."

Grimmjow appeared to stay focused on his own t-shirt before wrestling it on, touche grin sliding beneath the fabric as Ichigo passed behind him.

"Besides, if I'm not there, you might hang it upside down."

When a head of damp blue hair popped through and turned, azure eyes locked with Ichigo's for a split second in the playful challenge of one bested.

"Hn."

Ichigo turned and broke into a smile that the bluenet couldn't see. Grimmjow had squat. And Ichigo felt a little empowered as he melded back into the celebratory fray.

It was Grimmjow's turn to be uncomfortable.

X X X

The temperatures had dipped even further into the minuses as the day wore on, the wind gusts strong and sharp against the face. Winter was giving it her last all, bringing in a sudden arctic cold front before she finally blew herself out.

When Ichigo had stretched and groaned his way out from under warm heavy blankets that morning, the wind had been howling past his bedroom window. Whipping and brittle against the glass. They'd called for a sudden arctic low, bringing strong winds. But heck, it had even sounded cold out there.

And yet, here they were at sunset. Ever undaunted by the weather. The two of them.

At the Jaegerjaquez family home.

It was what was inside the house that Ichigo found daunting. He was going to meet Grimmjow's mother, again. And see Grimmjow's family home for the first time. And all in the name of good will and furniture assembly.

They'd pulled up to the house from opposite directions, but nearly in tandem. Now, as they headed up the driveway to the two story home, a rush of birds looking to roost blew by them like tumbling leaves on the wind. Except there were no leaves. Not yet. Just naked empty branches and snowbanks that refused to give way under a cold sun.

They both looked up as the determined flock passed overhead.

"Tough little fuckers," Grimmjow grunted as they hit the steps to the deep side-front porch of the two story home. It was older, box style with an addition, but very well maintained.

Other than "Yo" and "Cold enough for ya?", that was about all Grimmjow had said before they went inside. For all the nerves Ichigo had stored up, their greeting was a bit of a let down.

Grimmjow bulldozed on in ahead of his guest and dumped his heavy winter boots on the rack in the front hall, complaining as he did.

"Fuck, it's rude out there," he grumbled, careful to keep his complaint on the quiet side on account of his ma would smack him upside the head on the very off chance she heard him. It wasn't that bad, really, not compared to mid-winter, but it only took the body a few warmer days to make a day like this feel like frozen hell.

Ichigo shrugged out of his jacket and countered in surprise as he noticed how warm the air was inside.

"It's a sauna in here."

Shucking his own coat off and reaching for a hanger, Grimmjow darted him a tired eyed look, then turned away.

"She's eighty. What can you do."

"Not complaining," Ichigo said earnestly, frowning and shaking off more than the gripping chill of the outside which clung to his clothes as Grimmjow headed down to where the short hall turned. Something wasn't right with his partner, and it was hard not to wonder if it might not be his own presence.

"Maaa. We're here!" Grimmjow bellowed as he rounded the corner into a longer corridor. She didn't always hear the door these days.

Ichigo followed his voice.

Eighty. Man. Grimmjow had mentioned her birthday in passing awhile back, almost grudging about sharing it at the time it seemed. But Ichigo was used to that by now. Everything about Grimmjow had that feel to it, like he kept his family and personal issues behind miles of barbed wire fencing.

Ichigo knew what it was to want to protect your family. And to lose them. He missed his own mother, but his father was still young and his two sisters were thick as thieves and always pleased to see him. He couldn't imagine what it must be like for Grimmjow, to have one elderly parent left and no siblings at his age. As far as Ichigo knew, he didn't even have any extended family. His parents had both been only children and had migrated together from overseas.

Ichigo turned to the right at the end of the long hallway. He took in the open kitchen and peninsula to his left, the small dining table with extendable flaps on the other side, and the large yet cozy, and surprisingly vivid living room to his right.

"Hey, Ma." Grimmjow was half hunched over what Ichigo assumed to be his mother. He could hardly see her behind the enforcer's bulky embrace. He heard the light smack of a kiss before the bluenet unfolded himself and turned around.

"Ichigo. Ma. Ma. Ichigo." He snorted as he extracted himself from between them. "Course, I know you met already. Just don't go ganging up on me, hn?."

He padded into the living room with an arrogant smirk that said he wasn't threatened in the least by the pair of them. He'd still come out the victor. The playful air was a thin lie, though. Ichigo could see. Grimmjow was under a lot of stress in general, more lately, and for reasons maybe similar to Ichigo's, he was not completely comfortable with Ichigo's visit. There had been a distant edge to him since the moment they'd met out in the driveway. And all Ichigo could do was try not to take it personally. But he still had doubts.

"Ichigo, welcome. Is so nice to see you again." Petra Jaegerjaquez grabbed both of his hands in hers and squeezed, eyes lit with warmth and a genuine thrill. "Thank you so much for helping my Grim."

"Oh, it's nothing..."

"He's helping you, ma. And don't thank him yet... " came the distant jab from the living room. Ichigo opened his mouth to retaliate, but the enforcer's mom ran him over with a fuss he couldn't avoid.

"Oh, would you look at you. Still so handsome." She reached up to squeeze his arms as she looked him over with bold consideration. "But you look so much thinner now."

"I do...?" Ichigo trailed off, looking down. He'd lost a few from their intense schedule but hadn't thought it showed.

"You boys work too hard. Eat too little," she nodded firmly, nose wrinkling and lips crinkled into a thoughtful ball. "Go ahead," she ushered him surprisingly physically towards the living room. "And I will make you something to put meat back on those bones."

Ichigo frowned as he wandered at least the last few steps across the room under his own power, running his hand down the front of his shirt.

"Do I look thinner?"

Grimmjow rolled his eyes, heaving him a sideways look from the box he was unpacking.

"Worse case of skinny-fat I ever seen," he snorted, enjoying the crestfallen pinch of Ichigo's nose until the moment he realized he was being suckered again. But he really was losing muscle. They all were to some degree.

"I'm just naturally lean..." Ichigo muttered in half-hearted protest as he scanned the rooms where Grimmjow had spent his formative years. The house was so warm and homey... Inviting. It explained nothing about the origins of the surly hit man slash high rolling playboy they'd all come to know and... well know.

The living room and kitchen were open with plenty of space. The living room itself was a shrine to hockey. Ichigo was a little surprised. Had he imagined what Grimmjow's parents house would be like, he would have expected it to be a little more... senior-ish. But it wasn't really. A small black flat screen TV hung on the far wall. Beside it, two large posters were encased in glass. Grimmjow the centre of each one. And beside those, his jerseys were also encased in glass. One from each team. This was very much a hockey home, and Grimmjow was it's star.

Ichigo could relate. There were large framed pictures of himself on the wall at home too. Right beside the stupidly large poster of his mother. Family photos littered the living room, dining room, and his dad's bedroom. The focus was never entirely on Ichigo in his home, though. His sister's graduation photos ascended the staircase walls chronologically from pre-school to graduation. No one was safe.

The slide and thump of an empty box brought Ichigo back around to his host. Grimmjow placed the much larger new TV against the back of the sofa. But he was looking across the room like he was trying to work something out.

"Where's pa's chair at?" he said suddenly, voice gone strange.

"Is gone to charity." Petra answered from the kitchen, where she was pulling items from the fridge and laying them on the counter.

"The fu-? Why'd you-? It's pa's chair." His voice rose in pitch and volume.

"That old thing?" Petra continued to move around the kitchen. "Guy was going to pass it on. He wanted to get new one. And for his birthday next week, I am getting him nice new chair and big TV. Things I know he will love."

"It's a nice thought," Ichigo offered, with a small smile for Petra as he looked between them, hesitating when he saw a lost utter blankness on Grimmjow's face. And behind that...

Ichigo would have thought he hadn't heard him at all, but for Grimmjow's subtle flinch. He looked over at his ma like she didn't understand a thing, and argued quietly. Quieter and somehow more determined than Ichigo had ever heard him speak.

"It's where he sat." To watch hockey. Grimmjow's hockey.

"Is present for Guy's birthday." Petra kept working at the counter, shoulder to her son, and twirling a long knife around as she spoke. "We agreed we need better chair and bigger TV so we can see our boy play for Stanley cup." She smiled as she looked out over them both. "Is where he will sit now."

And that was the end of it.

Grimmjow's jaw muscles twitched, and Ichigo swore he could hear the grinding of bone. Ichigo knew damn well that Grimmjow's father had died over a year ago, before the last season had begun. It was common knowledge. It was obvious that his father's death was extremely painful, and that something had happened. Something bad. But no one ever talked about it. No one dared. Not even Kensei.

Grimmjow mumbled something under his breath that Ichigo couldn't catch and probably didn't need to hear. Then he turned and got back to the business at hand. Eyes narrowed and mouth tight, it was clear it wasn't the end of it for him.

"So," Ichigo followed his lead with hopes he would stay focused on their project, a little guilty for wanting peace when maybe he could be jumping on it. Even if his sense of survival knew better. "Should I take the old TV down first?"

Grimmjow looked at him tiredly for a moment before he seemed to tuck his emotions out of the away and switch gears.

"Yeah."

It was a relief, but also... unnerving. Like watching a land mind compress. Maybe Ichigo should have said something this time, survival be damned.

"Got a screwdriver?" he asked as he moved to dismount the midsize flat screen TV from between Grimmjow's near life sized action shots. He was so photogenic, it was ridiculous. Seriously, the guy was just hockey fan service. Ichigo leaned far back as he looked from one to the other. Then looked back over his shoulder.

"Are you sure the new TV will fit between your glamour shots?"

Grimmjow ran fingers through the short hair of his neck, a move to bleed out the angry energy that still buzzed around him, Ichigo noted. But his mouth quirked slightly as he fired back.

"I'm sure... Maybe I'll get ya a t-shirt with my face on it. Give people someone hot to look at."

Rolling with the lightening mood, Ichigo gave Grimmjow a dubious look.

"Are you that hard up for an excuse to press your face against my body."

Grimmjow's eyebrows twitched in the oddest expression.

"It's not the worst thing I've pressed against your body."

And Ichigo felt his face burn in the startled silence. He must have fifty different brain clots to have said that out loud.

"Screwdriver," he blurted... a little forcefully. Screwdriver...screwdriver... screwdriver... And to his massive relief, Grimmjow let their banter die out in favour of getting on with it.

"What head do we need?"

Ichigo lifted, then pulled the TV against his chest so he could see the wall mount behind it.

"Philips." He turned, not expecting to see Grimmjow bending to pry open the box with the new wall mount inside. He waited a beat, but Grimmjow seemed engrossed as he grappled with the opening.

"I can do that," he prompted, setting the old TV down on the couch. He didn't want to wait around with nothing to do. And Grimmjow said this would be quick. And why did he want to get this over with so quickly anyway? It wasn't so bad so far...

"Tools are in the workshop downstairs," came the half muffled, and somewhat air-conditioned reply.

Ichigo merely leaned on the TV that he'd parked on the couch. Grimmjow did not expect him to hunt around in someone else's home for tools. Something in the way Grimmjow dithered around with the box, though, not looking at Ichigo's determined stare... said that maybe he was avoiding fetching the tool. Was he being a lazy bastard? That wasn't like him at all. Ichigo half wondered if maybe he didn't know what a Philips head was. But he'd asked, so...

When Ichigo didn't move, and Grimmjow finally noticed, he came up off one knee, strangely resigned, and turned to go, ending their muted stand-off.

"I'll be right back," he said automatically.

"Ichigo," his mom called over from the kitchen. "Ichigo, I am making piroshki. You are hungry, yes?"

Pir-what-shki?

Ichigo waved her off. All he knew about Russian and German food was sauerkraut. And he knew he hated it.

"Oh. Well, I'm not... really that..."

"Yer safe. It's just buns with filling." Grimmjow yelled back a little gruffly as he rounded the corner and disappeared down the basement stairs. "Giv'm at least six, ma."

Petra smiled, eyes crinkling like soft drying clay. "Yes. You will eat. You will like."

Ichigo smiled back... fondly, if not a little relieved.

"It was Guy's favourite," she announced as she placed a bowl on the kitchen counter. She pulled a drawer open and scooped out a spoon, using it as a pointer as she spoke. "Every Sunday for lunch, he would tell me," her voice deepened with authority, "Woman, make me some piroshki."

Her soft laugh was genuine, full of warmth and devotion. She took her loss and carried on. At this end of life, it was no less simple to lose your family and friends, your love, no less easy. But the love she had, its strength, the knowledge in who she had been and who she still was, it sustained her. It had nourished her heart through all these years, and it still did. He could tell.

But what of their son.

X X X

His foot hit the last step and he moved through the basement den like an intruder, soundless and quick, passing through the open door to the laundry room and workshop without taking anything in. On a mission. Get in. Get out.

Sometimes it bothered him to be down here. Sometimes it wasn't so bad. It depended on the day. But right now... His pa's lounger was missing and it wasn't right at all. Seeing it every time he came over hurt sometimes too, but it fucking belonged there. And she'd donated it like it didn't matter. It fucking mattered. He didn't want to get into it right now though. Not with a guest in the house.

He made a right turn past the washing machine, then headed straight for one of several large red tool chests in the roomy workshop.

The workshop was relatively tidy, a pegboard wall which was home to neatly hanging tools looked over a long, rustic wooden table. The usual bits of wood ends and sawdust clumps, rogue screws and coloured wires that had almost always covered the table were absent, as if the shop hadn't really been used in awhile.

Really lived in.

Because it hadn't.

The feeling ran right into him, sudden and overwhelming, like a blindside body-check. He felt like he was trespassing. Stepping back into a period he no longer belonged to. Standing in the place of someone he'd... failed.

He'd been down here a handful of times over the past year and a half, but always with purpose.

Grimmjow stopped short in front of the tool box. God. It'd been a year and a half already. Suddenly, more than ever, the workshop seemed frozen in time. Most of what his pa had still where he'd left it. Tools and brushes and rags, all in the place where he'd last laid them down. What he'd been working on that day, still unfinished.

Grimmjow could still smell him down here, feel him, distinct and warm, the shop itself pulling up reels of memories of the small projects he and Grimmjow had taken on... and of the trace smell of sawdust from the shirt he'd been wearing the very last time he'd...

Grimmjow snagged the handles and pulled out one drawer after another, growling to himself after the fourth one failed to produce the item he needed. Ma must have been trying her hand at fixing things herself again and not put it in the right drawer. She had all the friends and help she needed, but she always like to be independent. Especially since... Fuck.

FUCK...

Grimmjow yanked on another drawer. And there it was. He slammed it shut, and turned away, eyes fixed on the door. He batted the light switch into its down position and hurried for the stairs.

. . .

"I always make piroshki for my Grimmjow when he comes for lunch. It think that it helps to remind him..." Petra trailed off, blinking quickly then shouldering her petite body straight before bursting back into motion, hands sweeping along the counter top.

"He doesn't talk about him," Ichigo offered softly from his comfortable seat on the other side of the counter. He'd forgotten about being helpful. Or making good time. Her flurry of activity ceased, and she reached out to place her hand on top of his.

"He will not. And I worry for him." On cue, emotions creased her face. "I do these things for him..." She gestured towards the food and the boxes in the living room. "...ask him for help with little projects like this, hoping... to bring him home, to get him thinking about good times. I hope maybe then he will talk." She shrugged, the knife in her hands braced against the counter top, her thoughts ending on a small sigh.

It was bold of him, but she seemed to want to talk, and he wasn't going to get any information out of Grimmjow. She was a woman who loved her son, but didn't know how to reach him. And ultimately, he was worried about him too.

"I apologize for intruding, but... Can I ask... what happened?" He asked gently, knowing nothing about the circumstances. Because until now, he'd never specifically pushed anyone about it other than Kensei, who had only told him to let Grimmjow tell him himself. Helpful. But somehow, surprise, that just hadn't happened yet. And he had the feeling it never would.

. . .

Grimmjow hit the last step and turned the first corner onto the landing, the kitchen still out of sight, but the voices not out of range.

"A year and half ago Grimmjow's father... had heart attack... They called it the Widow-maker." Ichigo cringed. He knew what that meant. A one hundred per cent blockage of the left anterior artery. Without quick medical care, almost always fatal. "They could do nothing to bring him back."

Grimmjow stopped dead.

"I'm so sorry for your loss." The familiar voice was soft and sincere. Consoling. Sounds and words he'd heard before. But it only gave the over-tightened gears in his guts another forced turn.

"It is okay. He was love of my life. And we had good one." She sounded regretful but still bright and cheerful. It was her way. Ever positive.

The grip around the tool in his hand tightened, but he couldn't feel anything in his palm other than cooling numbness. His knees felt loose and starchy. His hand found the door frame for balance.

"But I am okay." Petra nodded, a soft smile betraying her true pain. "He is here, always." She tapped against the old bones at the centre of her chest with two fingers. Ichigo turned his palm up to grip hers as he nodded, something twinging inside. Empathy. The small awakening of an old pain. Mixed with deep fondness. He felt something from her that he hadn't felt since he was a small child. A mother's special warmth. Her deep and abiding love for her family. Grimmjow was so lucky to have that.

She let go first, and he watched as she turned and began chopping up more mix for the piroshki.

"We made good family here," she said firmly. "Guy's friends were our friends. And we have still visits twice a week. We play Vint." She paused in thought. "A card game..." She turned, always waiving the knife to make her point. She did that a lot. "Is like your Bridge." She smiled at Ichigo and went back to chopping with her smile still in place. "And they always tell the same stories over and over. And I say, boys, now how can Guy rest if you keep him up all night with these wild old stories of yours? He will want to hear them all!" She laughed, and Ichigo did too. "And then I say to him in the chair where he always sits," her hand came up, knife tip waving towards a specific chair at the dining room table, "behave yourself Guy, or I will not make you any more piroshki when Grimmjow comes to visit."

Ichigo couldn't help but let the smile widen across his face, though he felt a familiar dampness in his eyes.

Grimmjow really was lucky to have a mother like her.

. . .

Grimmjow stepped back, turning around in a sudden nameless rush to go back downstairs. Away for a moment. To collect his thoughts or to block them out completely - He didn't want to hear the conversation. Or walk in on it. Or be anywhere near it.

He took half the steps down and stumbled, closed fist skidding along the railing until the friction between rough skin on waxed wood finally stopped him. He sat down hard on a step and screwed his eyes shut, breath coming much faster than it ought to. His chest felt tight and he felt almost dizzy. He could still hear them talking. He needed to get further away, but his legs wouldn't listen, and he didn't trust that they wouldn't send him straight to the bottom of the basement stairs.

. . .

"He sounds like he was a lot of fun." Ichigo knew the type, that guy who always got into some kind of trouble, nothing too serious, just enough to make for a good night of storytelling. His dad had a little bit of that in him too.

"Ah... he was best trouble." She grinned, one of those fang-like teeth, just like her son's, glinting with her own sense of mischief.

"But, you know?" She sobered, a frown creasing her soft features. "My Grim and my Guy, they were so close." She stopped what she was doing and sighed. "I know he hurts, but, why he will not come to me and tell me of his pain..." She said it to Ichigo like a plea. For him to tell her why. For him to be the one to drag Grimmjow out of his silent shell for her. "I ask and I ask, and he shuts tight like bear trap. We always talked openly. It was important to Guy." She sighed again. "I know he feels deep pain, but... I just do not understand this... wall he has made."

. . .

Grimmjow grabbed his temples, the pressure growing between them, jaw muscles winding themselves together, tightening like gears into solid metal knots. He was rocking, shallow and repeated.

"I don't like at all what you've become. You're better..."

The hard scrape of a chair.

"Grimmjow..."

"Keep it. Burn it. I don't fuckin' care."

"Grimmjow..."

"Don't!" Eyes wild. Ice cold. "...fuckin' talk to me."

He remembered peeling out of the driveway in reverse, stopping, throwing the car in first, second, third, the rush of city lights and dark streets. His phone in the seat where he'd pulled it from his jeans pocket and thrown it. An hour later, his phone ringing. He'd cooled enough to answer it. He didn't look at the phone to check the number. Just flicked it on. It was probably his pa...

"Hello?" He didn't care if he still sounded sore. They'd make up...

"Grimmjow..."

"Ma?" His own attitude was forgotten in the instant her voice hit his ears. The way she'd said his name was wrong.

"What? What's wrong?" Dead heavy weight sank in his stomach. "Ma?"

"Grimmjow... You must come home. Your father... your father had heart attack."

"...What?" Stone cold dread. Spreading through his body. Squeezing his muscles into tight knots.

"I came home and found him and... The doctors could not save him, Grimmjow."

"... what...?"

"He did not make it, Grimmjow. Your father... he is gone."

Gone.

But he was just with him. They were just talking. He told him not to talk to him... not to fucking talk to him.

It didn't make sense. He wasn't... gone. He wasn't...

Because if he was, Grimmjow would never get to speak to him again.

It was difficult to hear them talking now for all the blood rushing through his ears. He took a breath, and another, and another, and it just wasn't enough. But he'd been gone awhile. They'd start to ask. He had to get up. Grimmjow wrenched himself up from the staircase using both arms, palms against the wall until he thought he could stand. He took a big breath and exhaled. Heart still beating faster than it ought, but breath evening out, he pushed out into the hall that lead to the kitchen.

. . .

They both stopped talking as he entered the room. Looked at him. And Grimmjow took another fortifying breath to steady himself.

"Here." Grimmjow thrust the screwdriver at Ichigo, pointed end out like the parry of a sword.

Ichigo watched him with studying eyes from the edge of the kitchen island, and took it, the tug between them as it left his hand, noticeable.

Ichigo got up and went to the tv stand. Petra went back to work at the counter.

It left Grimmjow standing there useless for a moment. Forgetting what he was meant to do. Until the phone rang.

"Grimmjow, could you get it," Petra smiled, hands already submerged into a bowl of filling mix.

Grimmjow picked up the cordless phone that sat at the edge of the island.

There wasn't a human on the end of the line. Instead, it was a recorded message. From Mount Karakura General. An automated appointment reminder. For three days time. Grimmjow listened, then put the phone back in its cradle. He didn't look up right away.

"Who was it?" Petra asked, a half smile and curiosity on her face while she hummed through her work.

"Karakura General," Grimmjow said. It sounded like an accusation and Petra looked up. "Appointment reminder."

"Ah yes," she said, going back to her work.

"For what?" Grimmjow asked tightly. At the enforcer's tone, Ichigo stopped what he was doing in the living room.

"Is nothing, Grimmjow. Just a scan."

"A scan of what?"

She sighed.

"A check of a few little things. Nothing to worry..."

"Yeah, well I'd like to know. If something's wrong... You need to tell me."

"Is nothing, Grimmjow. I don't want to worry you when you have so much going on. If there is something, I will tell you."

Grimmjow's fist came down like heavy lead against the counter top, the dishes and cutlery on its surface rattling in reaction.

"Just fucking tell me!"

"Grimmjow! Is just test! Why are you being like this?"

"Because I don't need you dropping dead like he did!"

They all stopped. Every. Living. Thing. In that house... Stopped.

"Grimmjow..." Ichigo didn't know what to say, or what to do. He knew it wasn't his argument, his house, but he needed to make his presence a thing. Just to calm things down, calm Grimmjow down, if he could.

But Grimmjow only turned on him and snarled like prey with its leg snared in a trap.

"Stay out of it, Kurosaki, or I swear..."

But Ichigo didn't stop moving until he was a few feet away.

"No. Dial it down, Grimmjow."

"Don't tell me what to do. You don't know shit about me or my family. You have no business coming in here and pryin'..."

"Grimmjow!" Her command was as strong as her son's when she meant it, and he actually turned when she did. "What is wrong? You must tell me why you are being like this."

His skin was shaking. That's what was wrong. His bones disintegrating. His muscles loose and his insides writhing like serpents into all the wrong places. The air compressed inside his lungs before it all suddenly came tumbling back out.

"'Cuz he shouldnt'a died! It was my fault, alright!?" His eyes were wet suddenly, bright, exploding, with a pain so raw and agonizing, it was difficult to witness. And guilt... that shouldn't even be there, Ichigo knew. It made no sense.

"Grimmjow," Ichigo said cautiously. Because Grimmjow looked... unstable... about to crumble. It was unnerving. Unnatural. "It was a widow maker heart attack." Ichigo tilted his head, confused and trying to step his way through Grimmjow's reasoning. He still had no idea what had actually happened. Was Grimmjow there when it happened? "You couldn't have saved him. They're almost always fatal."

"What the fuck do you know?" the enforcer ground out, eyes shining and narrowed, upper lip trembling.

"Grimmjow!" Petra scolded again. Her voice – forgotten for a moment - snapped through the room with authority. And yet, the matriarch of the Jaegerjaquez seemed without true surprise at coldness of her son's outburst. It was his nature and she knew it well. But she hadn't known this. All this time. She hadn't known that her son, her only son, had taken on the burden of his father's death. He had blamed himself? Why had he done that?

She stayed silent as Ichigo continued.

"I know because I've seen them first hand. I've seen people brought into my dad's clinic and he couldn't help them. And it wasn't anybody's fault."

It was Grimmjow who stepped forward first.

"Just 'cause yer pa's a for-shit doctor..."

Ichigo took the next, his own fiery temper needing a place to go. He would never take shit from Grimmjow, no matter how much of a confused stubborn asshole he was being. And he couldn't put up with Grimmjow losing his temper at his mother.

"I don't know what you think you did, but you didn't cause it! Without help, he was going to die no matter what," he yelled hotly. It seemed like the only level of communication that might make it through to the obviously distraught enforcer. "There was nothing you could have done to change that!"

But Grimmjow was beyond reason. Too determined to take the blame.

Ichigo saw him tense right up, saw his fists tighten. Those fists were very big. And when they hit you, you were gonna know all about it. Ichigo knew, and the last time he'd felt one, he'd been wearing protection.

He could practically see the moment the last of Grimmjow's control slipped through his fingers like loose grains of sand.

He grabbed Ichigo by the shoulders of his shirt, twisting it in his fingers, and spun him 'round. Pain burst across Ichigo's shoulder blades and the back of his head as he was slammed up against the wall with prejudice.

And then Grimmjow's fist flew.

The punch that came at him had 220 pounds of fury behind it. He turned his head, ducking to the side on instinct. He knew, somehow, that Grimmjow never meant to hit him, just the wall, but, like his mind, his aim was a little off and his fist still grazed.

The world spun back, and there they were again.

It was day one.

X X X

Grimmjow pulled his fist from the white crumble of drywall, teeth snapped together in a frozen snarl, wild arctic eyes drilling into Ichigo's dark ones.

He'd probably injured himself. But it was no different from any other day. Bruises, and cuts, and too many swollen knuckles to think about. He hardly noticed the pain over the look on Ichigo's face.

Ichigo's eyes were hard. They were hatred.

Fucking Good. He needed to be hated. Needed a reason to unleash, let loose, to get hit back.

Except...

Except, Ichigo didn't hit him back. Wouldn't.

Just stared him down with nothing but harsh breaths between them. He pulled back, releasing Ichigo's shoulder with a rough shove.

"Fuck this." Grimmjow was through the family room door before they could react. He'd left them both standing there, confused and stunned in the wake of his temper.

"Grimmjow- "

Palm drawing up to his cheek, Ichigo peeled himself away from the damaged wall and took one step after him before Petra's firm yet surprisingly soothing voice halted him.

"Let him go, Ichigo."

The front door slammed.

"He will calm down. He will come back. He always does."