Receiving And Bearing

Go die somewhere.



Go die somewhere, Kurosaki Ichigo had told Grimmjow without any sense of dark humor or irony. What a patently useless command, given the already-being-dead-long-ago schpiel. Just because the fucking Shinigami didn’t take into account their own post-mortality didn’t mean Hollows were similarly affected. Grimmjow rolled over slowly on the warm rock, clutching his arms lossely over his chest as he laughed, eyes shut tightly as the wetness threatened to leak out of the corners. Tit was the sort of self-depreciative laughter that said the laugher knew everything about the hopelessness of their current situation.



A strongly hateful noise.



Grimmjow laughed so loudly, making sure the noise would cling to Ichigo’s ears long after he’d fled, that he never heard Ulquiorra’s soft and precise footsteps approaching across the desert. He never felt the slight flare of the other Arrancar’s masked reiatsu, even with the irritation laced through it. Grimmjow was most completely and pleasantly oblivious about the danger he’d put himself in until an effete black-socked foot connected with his side, digging, with all the force of a long-held grudge.



The impact created a snap as Grimmjow’s ribs shifted against one another, a sonic ripple in the air that forced Grimmjow bodily off of where he lay on the dark obsidian, sending him into the sky above the endless dunes and down with a sick, organic crunch, rolling across the white sand until he came to a stop, buffered only by a small crystal-tree that groaned against Grimmjow’s moving weight. Grimmjow forced himself to his shaking knees, rubbing at the blackish blood that dripped down his thin nose bridge, seeping from a silica burn where the skin had been abraded away. Ulquiorra marched slowly over to Grimmjow, hands resting lightly at his thin hips as Grimmjow stared up, tearing his vision away from the smaller Arrancar’s shadow which had been slowly approaching. The clown-like face, pale and lined, glowered dispassionately back at Grimmjow.



He had never noticed once before, in four whole goddamn years, how horrifyingly quietly Ulquiorra moved.



Grimmjow didn’t feel the broken rib shuffling unnaturally in his chest, as unsurprising as it should have been, until he tried to speak. He should have been using Hierro. He never should have left his guard down. Grimmjow’s entire side burned sharply with the effort of taking a breath, lungs refusing to inflate deeply. The overall throbbing of every muscle in his torso and neck must have chased most of the localized stabbing pain from the break away. Grimmjow tried to stand, knees shaking again. He made it halfway up before the scenery, as nonexistent as it was, started to list in his vision, his consciousness threatening to slip away.



Just what kind of hatred had Ulquiorra put into that punt that one little kick could cause so much damage?



Ulquiorra whipped his hands out with a strangely languid sort of movement, cupping the sides of Grimmjow’s face between fine-boned fingers and squeezing uncomfortably. The smooth thumbs were dangerously close to the edges of Grimmjow’s eye sockets, threatening removal if Grimmjow made the wrong move or said the wrong thing. The Arrancar’s sharp, short nails dug into the side of Grimmjow’s long face which was exposed, unprotected by powdery bone. The fingers tugged upward, pulling at the edges of the jaw-mask, lifting Grimmjow closer to Ulquiorra’s pale face as it stared down from above.



“You are a disgrace to Lord Aizen’s will, Grimmjow Jaegerjaques” Ulquiorra said calmly. “You are trash.”



Grimmjow simply spat in Ulquiorra’s emotionless little heart-shaped face. There wasn’t much he could say to make his point quite as obvious. Ulquiorra didn’t move, didn’t blink.



“Do you think that was some sort of clever bon mot?”



Ulquiorra muttered under his breath, bubble-filled saliva melting slowly down his unmoving features. The hands around Grimmjow’s face pressed in harder, as if threatening to crush the man’s skull beneath them; dirty Ulquiorra’s pristine white coat.



“It was not clever in the slightest. It was bovine.”



“I might’ve thought I was pretty clever,” Grimmjow snickered humorlessly, breathing still coming to him in harsh little gasps as the rib shifted against his lungs with every intake.



“If I even knew or cared about whatever the fuck a bon mot is, which I don’t. I bet you think you’re real big, trying to tell me how stupid I am just ‘cause you’re using big foreign words on me. But, Ulquiorra, I got a real good one for you too. You just wait for it—“



Ulquiorra Schiffer narrowed owl-like green eyes, slit pupils darting across Grimmjow’s face, searching for clues in the other Arrancar’s expression.



“Do you think I actually give a fuck about a single goddamn word you have to say?”



Ulquiorra tossed Grimmjow away from his body, thin fingers letting go of Grimmjow’s face so that his arms could move, bringing one sharp little fist up and then bringing it down across the bare portion of the blue-haired man’s face as he fell. Grimmjow could hear the sickening, elastic feeling of his own nose bowing inwards under the impact as it threatened to break. Grimmjow could hear the creaking of the cartilage inside of his own skull, falling back to hands and knees and coughing up the blood that was so suddenly running through his sinus cavity and down the back of his throat. Grimmjow began laughing again, a ribbon of dark leaking over pink lips, sliding from one nostril as he stared up at the fist that was just used to fuck his face up so very, very rudely. Ulquiorra’s knuckles quickly blushed an angry purple—Grimmjow hadn’t been stupid enough to not have deployed his Hierro that time; the blow must have hurt Ulquiorra as much as it had hurt Grimmjow, though the Arrancar’s face showed no sign of distress.



The dick.



Unprotected little knuckles against the protection of Grimmjow’s reiatsu. Quatro Espada probably didn’t need to use the technique on Grimmjow, not as wounded as he already was from the initial unexpected attack. It’d just be a waste of energy to Ulquiorra, someone Grimmjow would have had to release to even hope to fight against—it was like that. Grimmjow laughed even harder, couldn’t stop if he really tried to, eyes leaking as his ribcage shook and the pain shot up and down his sides.



Grimmjow was so, so boned.



“This is funny? This thing that I’m being forced by your behavior into doing, it is funny to you?”



“Fuck yeah, it’s funny.”



Grimmjow slid in the sand, finding no purchase in the substance as he scrambed to stand to his feet and gain some sort of advantage over Ulquiorra, even one so pathetic and insignificant as a superior height. The deft, subtle little black-socked foot made its way up as Grimmjow wobbled, kicking Grimmjow under the point of his chin this time, snapping his neck back with a spinal crunch. Grimmjow fell backward onto his shoulder, wrenching his previous chest wound painfully.



Those fucking kicks, you couldn’t see the damn things coming until they were there.



Grimmjow licked his split lower lip, a blood trail from the new wound joining the stream from his nose, a grimy tributary. It dripped from his chin and onto the sand, smelling the way a good swordfight sounded. Grimmjow stumble and rubbed the back of his sore neck as Ulquiorra walked forward for a second time, raising a hand gently into the air with a look of immense boredom scrawled across his face. Grimmjow knew that look, knew it was a form of deep, deep contempt on Ulquiorra’s part—he recognized the hand motion a moment later. Grimmjow crossed his arms in front of his face as quickly as possible, preparing for the inevitable Cero to the face, the one which Grimmjow had dreamed about in his sleep-mind a thousand times before that moment; memories of Ulquiorra’s slit, green, aggressively condescending eyes.



The red flash of light never came to bathe Grimmjow’s features.



Instead, Ulquiorra brought the back of his hard little hand down with a snap of his wrist, striking Grimmjow across the uncovered cheek. He whipped his back around to stare up at Ulquiorra, waiting for a secondary strike. There it was.



There was that red light, not nearly as strong as it had been in Grimmjow’s imagination.



The recent muscle damage in his neck, the hot throb from Ulquiorra’s kick to his chin was flaring up, and his ribs were aching more and more every time he shifted. The bala left Ulquiorra’s pale palm as he thrust his arm out, impacting with Grimmjow’s lower back before he could force his abused extremities to move him out of the way. Large pieces of what was formerly Grimmjow’s white clothing exploded off of his form, angry singe mark forming over his tailbone.



Grimmjow clenched his jaw, fists pounding into the sand which offered surprising resistance. The burning pieces of fabric stopped floating, falling back to the sands with their charcoaled edges or catching on the small, skeletal little quartz trees, black and white brocade slowly blending into the desolate scenery.



Ulquiorra raised the hand the Bala had been shot out of, tucking a loose strand of heavy black hair behind his pale ear. Grimmjow’s body shook, teeth grinding painfully as he ignored the heat and friction burn that was still lingering on the surface of his suddenly uncovered and unprotected skin, emotions slowly joining his muscles in wavering.



One never realized how disgustingly horrifying it could be to be half-naked and bared to the world until they were half-naked and bared to the world in front of someone who would kill them given the chance; kill them without a second thought concerning their existence. One never realized things like these until they were a possibility, even a small one—and for Grimmjow Jaegerjaques the possibility was suddenly very distinct. Ulquiorra was not, in any sense of the phrase, a happy camper. Grimmjow crawled forward slowly, catching the very little that was left of his tattered and burned hakama with his knee, loose and with shredded ties. The clothing slid from his waist gently, taking his black belt with them as they went.



Ulquiorra shrugged slim shoulders mockingly.



There was something in the world worse than losing to someone else—he’d lost to Ulquiorra and he’d lost to Kurosaki Ichigo, but this, this was a new kind of hell. Being debased was worse than any martial loss.



Grimmjow choked back a deep, angry noise as Ulquiorra shoved him over with a third strong kick, this one to the side of the head. Grimmjow rolled onto his side, ears ringing while spots of light flashed migraine-like in his blurry field of vision; wished he could scream out the pain, but he could barely breathe correctly. He half-opened his mouth to speak, say anything, curse up a blue storm, but Ulquiorra was on top of him like a diving falcon on a rodent before Grimmjow had the chance to utter anything, thin, boney body with its muscles made for no wasted effort evident even beneath the baggy hakama draped over Grimmjow’s thighs and back. The other Arrancar’s small fingers wove into Grimmjow’s thick blue hair without care and shoved his face harshly against the ground, every action leaking repressed vehemence.



Sand mixed with blood and saliva as it was ground into facial wounds, irritating Grimmjow’s split lip and sore gums. He winced and snarled.



“Fuck!”



Grimmjow’s voice came out a nasal rasp as he tried to drag himself away and out of under Ulquiorra’s form with little success, efforts not worth the struggle.



“If you don’t get right the fuck off of me, you high-handed, overbearing fucking lap dog...”



Grimmjow felt Ulquiorra’s unused hand part his asscheeks, spreading them. The muscles in his thighs and back drew tight and quavered in Grimmjow’s fear and disgust and impotent fury, knowing what was coming next because he’d thought of doing it to others before, to get revenge, to make his position on the food chain unforgettably apparent. Ulquiorra moved with speed like stabbing, shoving three fingers in up to the second knuckle, cutting with the sides of his nails—they weren’t so small to Grimmjow anymore, weren’t so girlish. No preparation. No enjoyment on Ulquiorra’s part, it being a game of power and telling Grimmjow that any desire he might feel toward the prisoner were unacceptable. It had to be a message about the Vaizard. Grimmjow whimpered and hated the noise that came out from between his parted lips, spitting out the wet sand-mixture gathering in his open and panting mouth, eyes closed and leaking, hot and salty.



The fingers hooked and the whining noise in the back of his throat doubled in volume.



“You speak on the subject of dogs, Grimmjow Jaegerjaques.”



Ulquiorra spoke the beginnings of his own insult with a voice that was low and full of clinical disinterest, fingers ripping and shoving in further with a lack of tenderness, angled for what would cause maximum pleasure; biting with his nails for equal, commanding pain. Grimmjow dug his teeth into his own wrist to cut off the demeaning little noises he was making despite his pride. He could feel the sensitive skin of his sphincter begin to tear, warm wetness of his blood leaking slowly down the cleave of his ass and the inside of his thighs at the same time as Ulquiorra’s fingertips jabbed deep. The tips rubbed into his needless, underused prostate gland; there but for Aizen Sousuke’s senses of completeness and perfection. Grimmjow’s ribs ached as he moaned deeply. The fingers inside of Grimmjow scissored and brushed against the spot again, pleasure rolling over Grimmjow’s shaking, sweating form as the bits of sand stuck all over.



Ulquiorra ignored the blood and the noises, denying Grimmjow even the courtesy of a single damn given.



Grimmjow sucked at the hot skin of his own arm, trying to give himself something else to focus on, wondering why Ulquiorra Schiffer even cared enough to violate him, so unaffected by everything in existence that wasn’t Aizen as he was. His wandering thoughts only briefly tore his mind from the reality of Ulquiorra’s cold form still pressed against his back, a curiously light weight as he roughly finger-fucking Grimmjow. He could see it, in his imagination, the way Ulquiorra’s straight little face would be dark and unmoving.



An erection filled and grew hard and heavy between his quivering thighs, springing up quickly and unwanted, against Grimmjow’s will and pride and better sense. The blood continued to drip, the fingers continued to stroke over his prostate and force the sex noises out of him. His cock throbbed as a reminder and an accusation, hard and hot and intensely painful where it hung—he refused to touch it. The moon was still large above them and strangely unforgiving.



So very humiliating.



Were there others watching him be roughed up and left used, Adjuchas out there in the desert? Little mindless Hollows? It was likely and the idea was sickening.



“You speak on the subject of dogs as if calling another one would make you any more worthwhile. You are below the level of a dog, Grimmjow. Even a very stupid dog knows when to put its tail between its leg and submit to a superior being before it gets put forcibly in its place.”



“Fucking pervert.”



Grimmjow hissed his rage out between his teeth, words a violent expulsion of air and spit. He finally managing to shove Ulquiorra off of him, boiling anger over-riding pain on his exterior and his interior, fingers sliding out of him. There was also the possibility that perhaps Ulquiorra had exhausted his interest in this current torture, had let Grimmjow slide away—Grimmjow was pissed at himself for entertaining the thought. He had no energy left to turn around and claw Ulquiorra apart, however; only enough to move a few feet away and curl around himself, blue of his eyes dark and moody as he finally could glare across the short distance.



The smaller Arrancar wiped his fingers off on what was left of Grimmjow’s uniform as he lifted it off of the sand and then tossed it on top of Grimmjow’s form; a pointed dismissal. Ulquiorra turned with a billow of his obnoxious coat-tails and walked deliberately back toward the cathedral-like doors of Las Noches.



“There is more than one way to break a man into pieces.”



Ulquiorra shot his parting blow over his slight shoulders softly and Grimmjow could catch the edges of a pleased, psychic smile in the other Arrancar’s reiatsu, emotion seeping out truthfully for the first time since Grimmjow had known the other man; a deceitful ambiloquy.



“Some methods are merely decidedly more efficient.”



Grimmjow suddenly wished he made a habit of eating like Kurosaki Ichigo did, as he lay bloodied and burned and still hard under the sun, like some recently discarded trash. Like he was waiting lifelessly for the carrion birds to appear and make his form unrecognizable so he wouldn’t have to life this the fuck down.



He wished he made a habit out of eating because he wanted to vomit on himself.