My Strawberry Kitten

A/N: Gah, many apologies for being late…again. DX I got distracted and the week flew by without me knowing it, such is the life of a college student on break, haha. I was surprised by how many people wanted/were interested in a Ken/Hana lemon, but unfortunately I don’t have what it takes to write a good one just yet, nor am I up to the challenge. Maybe in the future, but not right now. This chapter was late was it is. Sorry guys. :P I might add one as a bonus chapter if my muse doesn’t abandon me, but I make no promises. XD No smut in this one, like I said before, just pure funni fluff. :P And a certain someone is back along with a special guest~ :D

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Hoo boy, was Grimmjow in deep trouble when he woke up the following morning. Ichigo was decidedly…er…unhappy with what had occurred the previous night to put it lightly (very, very, very lightly, so lightly it was practically weightless; in other words, he was down right furious), and he made sure the devilish blue haired bastard knew it, and knew it well.

You’d be surprised how well dead silence and a rather effective glare combined with his infamous scowl of doom worked against Grimmjow’s will, if how carefully the older man was treading around his hot-tempered pet was anything to go by. The neko wouldn’t even let him near within a three foot range without either turning the other way, head held high as he ‘hmph’ed, or hissing and baring his teeth at him. Grimmjow wisely kept his distance.

During the next couple of days, a dark, thunderous cloud hovered above Ichigo’s head after what he dubbed ‘the Rope Incident’ had happened, and Grimmjow was, for once in his life, docile, especially with the threat of having to face his fiery neko’s wrath. He wouldn’t admit it, especially not to Ichigo in his current state, but when the hybrid wasn’t looking, Grimmjow secretly thought his Kitten was extremely cute when he was fuming. He kept his mouth shut though, another wise decision.

With Ichigo, the orange haired teen didn’t know who he was angry at more: Grimmjow, for tying him up and doing those kinky, perverted, unspeakably dirty things to him, or himself, for enjoying it as much as he had. The latter just made him seethe even more because he didn’t want to be mad at himself. He wanted to be mad only at Grimmjow because it was all his fault, dammit! Why the hell did he hafta turn out to be a masochist?! Dammit! Meanwhile, the blunet had to clench his jaw and fists in order to stop himself from pouncing on Ichigo when the neko’s tail fluffed up in irritation at his own thoughts. So cute…!

Things just got bad to worse after that when Grimmjow heeded Urahara’s advice he’d given him at the shop, and warily drove the volatile hybrid to the vet’s office for a check-up, where the doc had told Ichigo the bad news. While he was perfectly healthy in every other aspect, it turned out he was sterile, meaning he couldn’t bare cubs. He couldn’t have children of his own. Ichigo was devastated.

After hearing that, the teen’s little hovering cloud turned from a dark gray to a fathomless black, and started raining torrents of water down onto his head, metaphorically speaking. At least the metaphor stopped thundering, Grimmjow noticed, but he would rather deal with an angry Ichigo than a despondent one. His poor neko, sitting in a fetal position on the seat of the ledge near the window, ears drooping as his sad brown eyes gazed listlessly down at the city below. He was hugging his knees to his chest, his tail curled tightly around his legs, and he had laid his head down onto his knees jadedly. Grimmjow couldn’t stand to see his pet moping like this. It was utterly depressing. Also, he didn’t know how long his libido could hold out at this rate. This needed to be dealt with, and soon.

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By the next day, Grimmjow was still at a loss. Nel had kicked him out of the office again when the secretary had noticed how distracted he was. Luckily, nothing major was going on so the CEO left the office when Nel suggested (read: forced) him to take the rest of the day off. He was lucky enough to avoid his fan base just in case they were waiting for him by taking the back exit.

Now, the blunet was taking the long route home, the same one he had taken that fateful day he had spotted Ichigo in the window. Ah, what fond memories those were, and it’d only been about a month since then. Speaking of which, Urahara’s pet shop was coming up right now. Grimmjow glanced at the shop’s window briefly before doing a double take and nearly giving himself whiplash. What the-? Were those really…?

The CEO quickly crossed the road for a closer look, a feeling of déjà vu settling in as he looked down at a litter of cubs playing, all of different species, though one particular pair stood out to him from the rest and were the ones to catch his attention. The two napping tiger cubs curled up together in the corner appeared to be brothers, looking almost like identical twins from their sizes, to their short, spiky hair, their similar soft baby features, and their little striped kitten ears and tails. There was one major exception though: one of them was albino.

Grimmjow watched fascinated as the albino twin stirred, yawning and smacking his lips together childishly before turning the most unusual pair of eyes towards him. The cub’s eyes, still blurry from sleep, were inverted; golden irises swimming inside black sclera as he blinked a couple of times. Once he became more aware, those white triangular ears folded back when he noticed that a stranger was staring at him and his brother again. He narrowed his eyes and puffed his cheeks up defensively, instinctively trying to make himself look bigger than he actually was. Instead of backing away like he wanted the man to do, Grimmjow thought he looked adorably hilarious and grinned in amusement instead. The brat looked like a chipmunk. That made the cub’s tail puff up and he hissed, which resulted in waking his brother.

The other twin blinked up at his brother sleepily, rubbing his eyes and yawned. What amazed Grimmjow about this one was that he was spitting image of a chibi Ichigo; bright tangerine spikes of hair, big brown doe eyes now turned to him as well, and those cute little ears and tail, though they had more of a golden tint than Ichigo’s with stripes darker in color. The little look alike blinked and tilted his head curiously as he regarded the man. ‘I think I just found the solution(s) to all my problems,’ Grimmjow thought gleefully, and stepped into the shop for the third time that month.

“Ah, Jaegerjaques-san, hello! What can I do for you today?” Urahara asked from behind his fan. “I take it the ‘Love Nip’ worked?” he grinned like the hentai he was.

“It worked great, but now Ichi’s mad at me for taking advantage of him,” Grimmjow sighed and ran a hand through his perfect blue locks. “On top of that, he recently found out that he was sterile and has been moping around the house ever since.”

“Ah, I see, I see,” Urahara hummed thoughtfully before brightening and said, “Did you see the litter of orphan cubs in the window? The animal shelter just dropped them off since they didn’t have enough room at the moment for the little tikes.”

“Yeah, that’s why I came in. A pair of ‘em interested me, the twins. The orange one reminded me of Ichi, and his brother looks exactly like him other than the fact he’s albino, so I thought I’d take ‘em home with me and see if they’d cheer Ichi up.”

“I had a feeling you’d say that,” Urahara grinned, “Well then, let’s go see if the little tiger cubs will accept you! Their names are Jakeru and Shirosaki, by the way. If you hadn’t guessed, Shiro is the albino one.” He led the CEO towards the window display and they stood by the play pen to observe the babies playing.

Upon seeing the stranger again, Jakeru crawled around the other cubs to the blunet, big brown eyes filled with innocent curiosity. Just as he was about to reach the grown-ups, Jakeru felt his tail being grabbed which made him stop. He looked back and saw his brother frowning, shaking his snow white head. Letting out a whine, Jakeru sent his twin a frown of his own, but it came out more like a pout than anything. In response, Shirosaki puffed up his cheeks again and let go of the tail, turning his head away stubbornly from his brother’s thankful smile in a huffy manner.

Jakeru giggled at his brother before turning forward again and lifted himself up, standing wobbly. He toddled forward and reached out to hold on to the plastic panel that separated the litter from the rest of the shop for balance, before looking up into glacier blue eyes without fear. Instead, the cub blinked owlishly and opened his mouth, “Ma…ma?” he asked, wanting to know why this man felt…right.

“Sorry squirt, but I’m not yer Mama. You’ll meet him though, real soon. In the meantime, I’ll be yer Daddy,” Grimmjow smirked. Jakeru blinked in incomprehension, confused by all the words he didn’t know yet. “Da-da,” the man said slowly.

“Da…da?”

“Mhm, Dada.”

“…Da-da…Dada!” Tea colored eyes lit up and Jakeru clapped happily. He gave Grimmjow a bright smile and held his arms up, wanting to be picked up.

Though the CEO was unwilling to admit it like many other things, that smile melted his heart. He carefully lifted the cub up and into his arms, cradling him to his chest like a proud father would, and bent down to nuzzle the fine orange hair. Instantly, Jakeru inhaled his scent, imprinting it to his brain and snuggled closer, making happy baby sounds. Then the little cub twisted his upper body around and reached out a small hand out for his twin. “Un! Un!”

Shiro turned to look at his brother in annoyance and gave a little baby grunt, but then reluctantly crawled over to the panel and stood up on shaky legs. “Un.” The little albino’s deadpan face and baby version of a glare made Grimmjow crack another amused smile, and he carefully scooped him up too, when Shiro lifted his arms impatiently. The white haired baby carefully sniffed at him as well and involuntarily relaxed against the man when the reassuring scent of his new father figure washed over him. He gave a little huff before closing his exotic eyes and snuggled closer in irritation, not wanting to trust this strange man so quickly but was already beginning to. Grimmjow’s lips couldn’t stop from curling up again.

“Maa, maa, it seems they’ve taken to you, even Shiro to my great surprise,” Urahara commented jovially, fanning himself. “I guess it was a success, ne?”

Grimmjow nodded, still looking down at the babies who were beginning to nod off again. He slowly rocked them, swaying on his feet. “They’re pretty smart fer their age,” he mused, “Give me everything necessary. My credit card’s in my wallet.”

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The blunet arrived at his floor with the cubs and a small crew of his people carrying bags upon boxes of baby things in tow. “Just leave the stuff inside that guest room down the hall. I own this whole floor, so after that, yer all free to go,” he somehow managed to throw a pair of keys to one of them and watched them as they moved all the stuff into the room like he asked, locking it again and returning the keys to him before bowing and leaving through the elevator.

Inside the main rooms of the penthouse, Ichigo was busying himself preparing dinner, having had enough of his own moping. It wasn’t like he could do anything about it, so he decided to suck it up, deal with it, and move on. He spotted Pantera slinking by towards the doorway to wait for Grimmjow to come home, crouching into position in his ritual attempt at pouncing on the man once he arrived from work. The hybrid smiled, the first one in days, and shook his head in amusement. He had to give the cat props for trying, at least.

Speaking of the blue haired devil, the sound of keys jiggling and turning the lock was heard, and Ichigo paused in his cooking to listen in on what was about to unfold. The door swung open and a sky blue head duck down just in time to avoid Pantera flying over him. “Heh, good try, but not good enough, feline,” Grimmjow’s mocking voice could be heard from behind the open door. Pantera just hissed in annoyance. One of these days…

Then, the cat noticed the two additions his owner had with him. He gave a questioning meow, icy blue eyes looking on in interest. “Ah, you’ll find out in a bit. C’mon,” Grimmjow smirked and wandered into the kitchen to find Ichigo, with Pantera trailing behind him. “Ichi-pet, I’m home.”

The hybrid didn’t bother turning around and muttered uncaringly, “Hmph…and?”

“Aw, don’t be like that, Kitten. I have a surprise fer ya,” Grimmjow cajoled.

Ichigo cocked an eyebrow as he finished cutting up vegetables. “You’re trying to buy your forgiveness?” he asked sardonically, clearly unimpressed.

“Eh, I wouldn’t put it that way. Just turn around and see fer yerself,” his Master enticed, voice oozing like dark honey. Ichigo refused to show how affected he was by that voice and turned around ready to retort, but the scathing remark died on his tongue when he took in the two little cubs staring at him held in his Master’s arms.

Ichigo blinked. The cubs blinked. Ichigo rubbed his eyes, and blinked a couple more times. The cubs looked at each other before turning back to look at this new person. Finally, Ichigo managed to find his voice. “…Master? Why do you have…babies?”

“Well, didn’t ya say ya wanted brats of yer own?” Grimmjow smirked at his utterly flabbergasted pet. “Saw these two at Urahara’s shop on my way back, and they looked like ya, so I brought ‘em home with everything they could possibly need. Yer mini-me here is Jakeru, and the albino is Shirosaki. So, waddaya think, Ichi?”

The teen didn’t respond, not knowing what to say, his wide eyes not once leaving the cubs. Several moments later just as he was about to speak, the little one that looked so much like him turned to look up at Grimmjow. “Dada, Mama?” he asked, pointing a little finger at Ichigo. Ichigo balked as his Master grinned and nodded.

“Yep, that’s yer Mama, squirt,” he nodded and his toothy grin nearly split his face as Jakeru clapped his hands in joy and Ichigo sputtered indignantly. Shiro narrowed his eyes at the older hybrid, making Ichigo straighten as he scrutinized him for a moment (which made the teen feel like an idiot, being scrutinized by a baby of all people) before relaxing his face back into that deadpan look.

“Mum,” he said, nodding affirmatively to himself and then looked up at Grimmjow. “Pop.”

“That’s me, brat,” the blunet agreed, “Geez, yer really are smart,” he muttered as he walked over to his speechless Kitten, Shiro looking pleased at the comment. Grimmjow carefully transferred the cubs into Ichigo’s arms, making sure he was holding them correctly before stepping back a tad. Immediately, the two little tikes took in Ichigo’s scent and committed it to memory before cuddling closer to their new Mama. “Well?” Grimmjow peered at the teen expectantly.

Ichigo didn’t move right away, but then he calmly walked out of the kitchen and went over to the large leather couch in the living room, gently placing the cubs onto it. After making sure they wouldn’t fall off by placing various soft pillows around them, he turned to face his Master, his bangs covering his eyes which left Grimmjow feeling a little wary and uncertain. He wasn’t sure what was going to happen next. All he knew was that he certainly wasn’t expecting to be tackled to the ground a moment later with a lapful of Ichigo who was laying zealous kisses all over his face. “Oof?!”

“Thank you, thank you so much, Master. You don’t know how much this means to me. I always dreamed of someday have a family of my own, and now I do. Thank you, thank you…” Ichigo muttered between kisses before pulling the business tycoon into a hot, steamy kiss. “Mmh…Pantera?” the hybrid called as he rolled his hips down to meet the blunet’s, causing a surprised Grimmjow to groan and respond by sitting up and running his hands all over the teen’s body, sucking at his neck.

“Mreow?” If the cat could cock an eyebrow he would have. As it was, a knowing air surrounded the feline who already guessed what Ichigo was going to say.

“Could you please–ah–could you watch over the cubs for a little while?” he asked, throwing his head back with a sexy little moan when Grimmjow cupped his bum and began massaging the globes, nipping at his mark. “Or a long while?”

Pantera gave a cat’s version of a sigh. “Reow.”

“Nn, thanks,” was the breathless reply before Ichigo forced himself to stand from his straddled position and tugged at Grimmjow’s tie, leading the dazed, enamored man to the bedroom. “Must properly show my gratitude after all…” Ichigo purred, throwing a sultry look over his shoulder at his Master as he said it, his tail waving at the blunet invitingly. He got a low, aroused growl in response before the resonating sound of the door slamming shut echoed across the suite. Gasps and moans could faintly be heard as well, minutes later.

Pantera rolled his blue eyes heavenward. Human(oid)s. Shaking his head, the black feline trotted towards the couch and jumped up, preparing to keep the young’uns busy for the time being. Jakeru squealed happily when he saw him and hugged the cat to his chest as Pantera weaved his tail in front of Shiro’s face. He lured the albino baby to try to catch it, but the tail kept flicking just out of his grasp.

“Moh,” Shiro’s brow furrowed into a look of immense concentration on his little impish face, and kept trying. Pantera watched him lazily; he still couldn’t believe he was reduced to babysitting duty, the nerve of people these days. A black ear twitched when Jakeru started petting him gently and nuzzled his face against him, making soft giggling sounds into his fur.

…Okay, so maybe it wasn’t so bad.

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A/N: Hee, yes, I made Shirosaki a baby, and babysitter!Pantera made me lawl all over the place. XD We’re drawing close to the end, I’m afraid. Last chapter should be up on time since it’s already done, but I still need to edit it a little and if I decide to write that Ken/Hana lemon, it’s gonna take some time. So. Stay tuned~