He Who Touches Pitch

Izuru's first coherent thought was, I've gone blind.

It was not an unreasonable assumption. The room around him, if indeed there was a room, seemed to be utterly and perfectly black. Straining his eyes, blinking rapidly, peering in all directions -- things that should have adjusted his vision, brought minute and fuzzy grey details into focus somewhere -- were of no use.

Then he tried to move more than his head, and realized that it was much worse than that. He could not feel anything, felt sure somehow that he was on hands and knees but sensed nothing beneath him, no friction, no temperature, nothing. His body was unresponsive, paralyzed, from the neck down.

Oh god, he thought.

"He's stirring," a voice murmured with too-familiar amusement, and instantly some part of him curled in on itself, before the rest of him even had a chance to process and recognize that awful, lilting tone. Only one man could make honey taste like poison. "Ooh, his eyes are all unfocused and soft. You'd think he'd come already."

Laughter, distant and low. "Don't get ahead of yourself, Gin. It's only that he can't see either of us."

And that voice -- that warm, rolling chuckle, fatherly even when it couldn't have been, shouldn't have been -- that belonged to...

Memory came back to him in fractured pieces, and Izuru saw the battlefield for a moment in his mind's eye, saw the chaos of shinigami fighting, the flash of shikai, the cries of newly-seated officers unprepared for real combat, blood and fear and pain everywhere. Someone had come up behind him, he remembered the sight of their shadow on the ground before him, remembered wasting two seconds berating himself for not sensing the approach, and raising Wabisuke in a flourish that proved too slow.

Then darkness, and this room, and a dull ache in the back of his skull where he must have been struck before they brought him here.

So many bodies strewn across the white sands of Hueco Mundo -- would they realize he had been captured, not killed? Darkly Izuru wondered if there was even anyone left alive to mount the rescue mission.

He felt fingers threading through his hair, brushing his bangs away from his face, and tried to flinch back but couldn't. It was not quite paralysis, he realized dimly. In a way it was almost worse. Something was holding him in place, making his skin into a stone sheath while beneath it muscles twisted futilely. He could struggle all he liked and it would make no difference. Izuru held his breath, and stared fiercely into the darkness, trying to see the long-fingered hand that should have been there, pale and spiderlike and touching him.

The way it had always touched him.

(aww, don't tense up like that, izuru, you'll hurt my feelings)

Squeezing his shoulders very gently; tipping his chin, to encourage eye contact; settling over his hand on Wabisuke's hilt, stroking the tendons and pretending to show him the proper way to grip a zanpakutou--

Dimly he could still remember the first day, how the use of his personal name had startled him like a slap across the face, how the easy intimacy had made him flush with discomfort. These were liberties that so few captains took. But his captain, oh, his captain had smiled that lying smile, and Izuru had convinced himself it was just the other man's way, just friendliness, that all the physical contact was perfectly normal, perfectly fine. He'd never said a word, never moved away, had forced himself still and endured the discomfort and waited, waited, waited with aching lungs for the fingers and the hot sticky breath to withdraw on their own. Even when those fingers had wandered beneath his clothes--

He hadn't wanted to make a scene, to hear that voice surprised and so slightly disappointed, all innocent confusion, so he had never done anything to stop his captain. And now he couldn't.

There was a sort of irony in that.

The part of him that could still think rationally whispered, This must be one of Kyouka Suigetsu's illusions. You only think you can't move; if you try hard enough, they will have to let you go.

But Ichimaru (not captain ichimaru? not anymore?) had always seemed able to sense his thoughts, sometimes even before he himself was aware of them, and the fingers tightened in his hair until they hurt. "Wouldn't, if I were you," he chirped sweetly. "What's the matter, Izuru? Did you forget how this goes?"

Just that easily, just that naturally, and still Izuru after all, as if nothing had changed. As if Ichimaru had never left, as if no one had murdered the Central 46, as if he were anywhere now but a sightless black box, and the last year had been naught but a fevered dream.

He could feel the warm breeze of the other man's breath on the back of his neck, stirring fine hairs there and provoking the same quick shiver it always had. Had he forgotten how this went?

(don't worry, izuru, it'll feel nice)

Does the skin forget that fire burns it, that metal cuts it? Does it ever forget how to bleed?

"Be gentle with him," the other voice broke in again, smooth and confident and almost, in spite of its gentleness, indifferent. The sound of it filled him with fresh shame, made him feel sick to his stomach for reasons he didn't want to think about -- how could it possibly be worse to know that there was someone at least supervising this torture. "He may no longer be inured to your little games, Gin. Too much too quickly... and you might break him."

He was rising up on his knees, legs spreading just enough, like a trained dog begging for its master. At first Izuru wasn't quite sure how he had managed it, but then he realized that he hadn't, that his body was moving of its own accord. A hand settled over his belly, and he realized numbly that he was naked. Oh god.

"The little peach was yours," Ichimaru replied sweetly, but there was something like a sulk buried in his tone. "You knew all her ins and outs, didn't you? If you broke her, it'd be because you meant to, wouldn't it?"

Long, long fingers stroking his bare skin, settling beneath his ribs, and he remembered how his captain used to count them, one by one, backwards and forwards, while with his other hand--

More laughter, conceding now. "Of course. I didn't mean to insult you. It's only that we really have no use for broken things here, and he was so much trouble to capture." He sounded so warm, he had always sounded warm, but Izuru could have sworn there was a new fondness somewhere in that voice. "All of this for a little nostalgia?"

While with his other hand--

"I was feeling sentimental."

Distantly, he wondered what they would think when (if) they came for him. Were they going to wonder why he wasn't bruised and beaten, the same way they had wondered when he'd followed Ichimaru out of his cell? Would they find him in another cell, curled up and naked with streaks of something still drying on his thighs?

He didn't know how he was going to face their accusing stares, when he had only just begun to regain some of the trust he'd lost that first night.

And worse than that would be the ones who knew better than to even question. Abarai-kun, who knew that your captain could steal parts of you in the night you didn't even realize were there for the taking. Hinamori-kun, who still knew what it was like to go to sleep half-afraid and half-hopeful that she would wake up and he would be there, at the foot of her bed, like the monsters mothers try to tell you aren't real.

Rangiku-san, who knew that some bruises are invisible to others.

Facing them would be so much harder. No surprise on any of their faces, only pity.

These thoughts were like a blade, held tight and twisted by expert hands because no one can hurt you better than yourself; a pain so intense that it should have spurred him to action, drawing on hidden reserves of strength to let him break through the illusion of darkness and paralysis.

Should have.

(just relax, izuru, or this might have to hurt you)

But that was when he felt it, his captain's other hand sliding smoothly between his legs to cup those dark, secret parts of him. That was when he felt his captain's middle finger, so practiced, stroke the underside of him -- right over the vein, precisely where it felt the most intense. Almost too intense, so that when the blood rushed to harden him it was almost painful, so that he felt stunned and helpless.

Just like every other time.

Ichimaru never asked permission, only reached through the slits in his hakama, rubbing his hip bones like they belonged to him. The way he did everything else. His body had been nothing more than another little piece for the collection, and not the worst thing his captain had taken from him. Sometimes it felt like he'd taken everything.

Everything but the shame. The shame, Ichimaru let him keep.

"He seems to like that," the other voice observed.

"Oh, no. He likes all of it." That awful smile, stretching against the back of his neck like a scar. "He used to be really shy, but I fixed that for him, didn't I?"

He tried to speak, but his lips only moved soundlessly. Izuru wasn't sure if it was part of the illusion, or because his breathing was too ragged for speech. He wet dry lips and ducked his head and tried not to feel the heat in his face. The fingers had curled into a cage, a thin sheath for him to thrust into, and it was harder than it should have been to hold still.

Ichimaru waited several seconds, and then -- he could almost see the shrug in his mind's eye -- released the length of him to press thumb and forefinger to his tip, dragging sweetly, teasing the slit there and making him gasp.

There was liquid there, he could feel it spreading beneath his captain's callused thumb. Pre-ejaculate.

"I'm a good teacher, sometimes, and Izuru here... He was the best student. Throbbing already, and I've hardly done anything at all~. The body remembers, you know?"

And his body was so eager.

The air felt thick and wet, as if he were drowning. His hips spasmed, trying to thrust, and he couldn't help thinking, Just once oh god just once it would feel so good-- Soon he would begin to make the thin, whining sounds that his captain had said reminded him of a trapped and desperate animal. Sounds that only his captain had ever dragged out of him.

He could not resist. He could hardly think. He was going to come and there was nothing he could do--

Only...

Izuru heard the words as if they came from miles away, but his captain's breath still tickled the sensitive skin behind his ear. "Or maybe..."

Only... that wasn't completely true, was it?

Abarai-kun would have thrashed against the illusion until something broke -- even if that something were his own body. Hinamori-kun, fragile as she could be sometimes, would have burned out her reiatsu, screamed and cried and begged them to kill her. Surely he could have managed at least as much as either of them... He could have forced these two to kill him, and died with what little remained of his dignity.

He wasn't doing any of it. And even knowing that he should have been was not enough to move him.

Ichimaru's voice lilted sweetly, and dug beneath his skin: "Maybe he doesn't want to fight this. Maybe this is just what he's been wanting, ever since we left him behind."

There were excuses for everything he had let his captain do to him, back in Seireitei -- for every intrusion on his personal space, every lingering touch, every violation. Ichimaru had outranked him, and more than that, terrified him. Even then, there had been no marks on him, no proof of anything other than mutual pleasure. Who would have believed him, when Ichimaru could so easily have rubbed the back of his neck and said mildly, Oh dear, did he not want that? He never said so.

It was understandable, what had happened. He was not to blame for the actions of his superior.

But every once in a while--

The hand beneath his ribs shifted, fingers like bleached bones stroking circles round one nipple, pinching lightly in time to other, more intense touches. His captain always saved that sort of thing for moments like these, what should have been foreplay coming in the middle or at the end, when he was sensitized and pleasantly numb, when the pain of a sudden twist would only make his breath come faster.

--every once in a while--

"Such a good boy," Ichimaru said softly, and the tip of that knifelike tongue swept over the nape of his neck, and lower, down to his shoulders, the bumps of his spine. Dragging fingertips very gently up and down his length in time with the darts of warmwet, so that he couldn't help but imagine what that quick tongue would have felt like, lapping at the liquid seeping from him. Izuru bit his lip to quell the image, but it wasn't enough to stop himself from thrusting, finally thrusting--

Because every once in a while, when Ichimaru left the 3rd Division offices for the night, going home to sleep while his dutiful lieutenant finished the rest of the paperwork, he had found himself so full of tension, unable to concentrate, unable to do anything but hunker down low over his desk, or slip silently from the room to find a nearby toilet, or even just lean back in his chair, spread his legs, and tend to himself right there like a whore.

Because every once in a while, just his captain's sly smile was enough to make him ache with need, work his robes and underrobes open, tracing a fierce erection with light fingers and then pumping, tugging, jerking himself to climax, eyes cinched shut and tongue between his teeth, trying to think of anything but someone else's invasive long-fingered hand, pleasuring himself until he came with a reedy moan.

(doesn't matter what little lies you tell yourself, izuru; this is what you really want)

And that, he had never been able to excuse.

His release was hot, thick, spilling over Ichimaru's fingers. Almost spraying them with the force of it. Needy and humiliating. It felt wonderful, and in that instant, when even the darkness went white, when pleasure rippled through every inch of him and curled his toes, Izuru didn't care. Nothing mattered, not his capture, not what his friends and superiors would think of him, none of it. He drifted peacefully, and the world moved on without him.

When he came back to himself some minutes later, he seemed to be lying on his side. Ichimaru had moved away from him; that much he was certain of. The languor of his orgasm was fading, and his stomach clenched unpleasantly. He had enjoyed that. What was the matter with him? Was he sick? Some sort of twisted pervert?

"Ah, Captain, I don't know what you want from me," Ichimaru was saying from some distance away. He had affected a tone of childish helplessness, and Izuru could almost imagine the smile that pretended innocence. There was something else in the voice, too, though. Something he had never heard there before. "I didn't promise you stamina. Does it matter so much? He's a good little toy, we don't have to stop or anything, if you don't want to~."

Then Ichimaru made a noise, and it was the kind of noise he hadn't thought his captain was capable of, and Izuru held his breath, listening in case it should come again.

"I rather think you would prefer not to stop here, Gin," the other voice said warmly, amusement running through it like electricity through wire. "Or did you really plan on working so hard to please him and then receiving nothing in return? No release for this tension..."

Another noise, even stranger than the first. His captain said breathily, "Perfectly, mmm, capable of -- entertaining myself, too, you know..."

"Of course you are," the other voice agreed pleasantly, and then something made Ichimaru hiss. "But wouldn't this be much more enjoyable?"

"You, ah... you might... have a point~... there, Sir..."

Izuru tried to move, wrenching at the spell that bound him. He couldn't see them, but it was easy enough to guess what they were doing, and the idea of lying here, blind and forced to listen -- no. No, he could not do that, wasn't sure he would be able to bear it. Ichimaru had always been polite to his old captain, respectful, much more so than to anyone else, but this was different, this was intimate and playful and... He didn't even know. Something he would never have expected from his captain, never even dreamed possible.

It was... wrong. He had to make it stop, because if it didn't, he would break in a way that he hadn't yet, and then if (when) they came for him, there would be nothing left.

The paralysis still had hold of him, but his attempted movement seemed to attract their attention, and the voice that didn't belong to his captain said lightly, "Of course I do. And look, he's awake now."

"Mmm, maybe you should let him go now, Aizen-sama... Before he scrapes himself raw on the stone trying to move around."

"Only for that reason?" the other voice asked, still light but now amused again. Was that affection? "I think you've missed seeing the fear in his eyes, and knowing it belongs to you."

"Aizen-sama knows me so well," Ichimaru returned pleasantly, and he sounded more focused; whatever the other man had been doing to him must have stopped. Thank god. But his voice seemed to be getting closer. "It's true. Izuru trembled just fine, all nice and pretty, but he never really looked at me, and you know I can't have that."

"So needy."

"Maybe a little~. What can I say, Sir? I love attention."

Laughter. "Indeed. I suppose I really shouldn't encourage your bad habits, but... Shatter, Kyouka Suigetsu."

And then he could see.

After so much darkness, the light was almost blinding. Izuru had to close his eyes, had to brace himself against it for a moment, before he could bring the bright, blurry colors into focus.

He was lying on his side, and naked. That much hadn't changed. His arms were twisted behind him, and when he tugged experimentally he felt a high-level binding spell; the power did not even shift. Something in the seventies, perhaps. Too strong for him to rip apart without ripping himself apart as well. He could feel the evidence of his climax between his legs, so that, too, had not been an illusion.

Ichimaru (still not captain?) knelt down into his view, and smiled at him. He was fully-dressed, in the strange white uniform that those in Hueco Mundo seemed to favor; a loose jacket with billowing sleeves, and white hakama beneath. The body of the jacket was tailored snugly, with a plunging neckline that showed bare skin almost to his navel. It was really very -- flattering. Izuru looked away quickly, but his face was already on fire, as if that glimpse of naked flesh had any right to be sensual.

(a lieutenant's duty is to his captain, izuru; no one else)

Did he choose that cut for you?

"Is that better, Gin?"

That other voice again. He glanced over only briefly, and caught a flash of the other man's figure, seated in a chair not far from them. Watching, no doubt. Impassive.

"Much," Ichimaru agreed, obviously pleased. He reached down, and Izuru felt those same fingers in his hair, smoothing it, straightening it, brushing his bangs back to expose both his eyes. He didn't mean to look up, didn't intend to give the man that satisfaction, but he couldn't stop himself and felt his flush go darker. "Yes. That's much better."

"Good. Bring him here."

Something inside him went terribly cold. No. Oh, no.

And even then, in spite of everything, Izuru found himself turning to his captain almost hopefully. Surely the older man would object, would save him from this horror as a selfish child hoarded his favorite toys. But Ichimaru only smiled wider, the smile that was like a gash in his face, and patted him on the head before taking hold of his shoulders and dragging him across the floor. It felt like sandstone, scraping roughly at his knees and toes just as Ichimaru had pretended to worry it might, and the sensation was far from pleasant but he hardly noticed the discomfort.

A chair that was more like a throne...

Tabi socks, and white hakama again...

Another jacket, but styled differently...

All of it coming closer with every careless inch that his traitorous captain tugged him.

"Up on his knees, I think," the voice murmured. "With his head in my lap."

And Ichimaru obliged, forcing his back straight, his head up. Driving his legs apart, until he was almost overbalanced. Moving his body like the body of a doll. He felt the fingers on his spine, thumb and forefinger swinging lower in a game of itsy-bitsy spider, until they were just above his rear.

New hands cupped his jaw, and tilted his head back. They were smooth, broader than his captain's, fingers long and tapered and incredibly, undeniably powerful. Izuru let them lift his head, because he could not have done anything else.

Aizen met his gaze, and smiled.

The fear melted, and he could not hold onto it. It seeped through his cupped hands, made a pool on the floor beneath him, useless and irrelevant. He had tried so hard not to think of this man's name, not to picture him, not to remember the sound of his voice or the comfort in it -- and now Izuru wasn't sure why. Except that, as long as it was only his captain doing what his captain had always done, everything had been somehow more bearable. This third party, this observer, this man who had always guided his captain's hands...

This man made him feel so small. Ichimaru had made him feel helpless, even worthless, but Aizen made him feel nonexistent.

A pleasant haze was softening everything. He could feel himself falling slowly into the eyes of his captain's captain, into the eyes of a god, and even knowing that it was all a trick, that these eyes were really the gaping maw of a monster and that as he fell he would be swallowed, devoured, destroyed -- even knowing, he could not stop himself, did not even quite want to.

Kyouka Suigetsu was the most dangerous zanpakutou, killing silently with all the pretty poetry of its name.

(do you really think the power's ever really in the sword, izuru? isn't the master what you should always watch out for?)

Slick fingers probed his entrance, and his body was so relaxed that they slid in smoothly, first one and then another, working in and out of him, scissoring to force him wide open. His head fell forward, his mouth open, and he heard himself panting noisily, felt his body stiffen and quiver with the force of those fingers. His captain had always been a little on the impatient side, he remembered languidly; one, two, three in quick succession, a cursory tease for the spot inside, and then--

Izuru shuddered, back arching, and almost wished his body were still bound by the illusion, kept perfectly still, because every move it made was a betrayal. He had released once already, spilled his seed with embarrassing ease, but he could feel it now coming to blood-red life between his legs, hard and eager for another.

Behind him, his captain was disrobing. He could hear the material as it fluttered to the stone floor, knew that if he could have turned his head he would have seen a series of swift, sharp motions; Ichimaru had grace, in his way, and while some shinigami seemed to dance through their lives, he always seemed to be cutting through his, shredding and rending flesh, tearing the very air apart or slicing cleanly through it with that constant, constant smile.

But he could not turn to look, could only picture these things in his mind, because with his head held so still, Aizen's eyes were the only thing he could see.

He felt skeletal fingers brush his hip, trace the pelvic bone over his belly, sink between his thighs, and dart briefly over his testes. A quick dart of pleasure so intense it was very nearly pain, carefully not touching the rest of him, as if the owner of the hand were afraid any more might finish him again. Izuru thought briefly about pursing his lips white to stop the sound, but in the end he only flushed and let the whimper come, low and dark with all the things he didn't want to need.

There were lips on the back of his neck. His captain breathed, "My, my. So unrestrained all of a sudden~. What did you do to my little boy, Sir?"

"Ah, I do apologize," Aizen replied good-naturedly. "I know you like the fear. But I'm afraid I can hardly help it, if some find my presence soothing." And then he laughed.

Horrible -- there was something horrible about that, something that should have made him sick to his stomach -- but the thought was dim and faraway, irrelevant. Of far more importance were the hands cupping his jaw, the hands now idly stroking his thighs, and the strange discomfort inside, not from the preparation or the lingering wet, but--

But because he was so ready, relaxed and spread wide-open, hard enough to ache, and his captain had left him empty so that these two could talk about distant, meaningless (confusing?) things. Because Aizen had not made any move to join them in their nudity, was only delaying everything even further -- unless the man who would be god intended to do nothing more than sit here like this and hold his jaw, stroking his face every now and then; watching his expression contort with the force of each thrust...

Something was terribly wrong with him, Izuru realized slowly. He shouldn't have... Things like that, you weren't supposed to think things like that...

He didn't have time to dwell on it. The hands slipped away from his face, settled on his shoulders and urged him back, just enough to let Aizen stand -- just enough to let him loosen those pure white hakama and step free of them -- and then their eye contact broke, and he was staring at something else entirely.

Aside from innocent glimpses of skin that one time in the hot springs -- and even then, he had been much too uncomfortable to do much looking, too preoccupied with wanting to run and hide in a smaller, more private bath elsewhere -- he had never seen another man like this before. Only his captain, and his captain had liked to do things in the dark, had so rarely taken off all his clothes anyway.

Izuru stared, for what felt like minutes, and then hastily lowered his eyes. Well-muscled, to be sure. Powerful, every inch of him.

Just as well Hinamori-kun had never gotten that particular wish, he found himself thinking with an edge of numbed hysteria; she was so small, it would have split her in half.

--Oh god, he was such a terrible person. Maybe this was really what he deserved.

Then Aizen had his chin again, had his eyes again, and the thought faded -- the horror faded -- everything faded. Everything but that throb of his reluctant desire, and the strange discomfort inside that made him work his legs ever so slightly further apart like an invitation to the man behind him.

(oh, you look so hungry like that, izuru; my little mouse's in heat)

The first thrust was a spear, piercing him utterly, driving him forward and almost to the floor, but still his mind was clear of everything but the sensation, the slight ache of muscles straining, the burn of friction he had always felt so guilty for enjoying. He moaned, and for the first time in his life, it wasn't through clenched teeth.

"Are you having fun, Gin?" Aizen did not look away from him. It was as easy and casual as a question over tea.

His captain made a husky sound. One of those sharp little laughs, dulled by the pleasure of having something tight and hot and soft all around him (such a good boy). "Should, ahh-- Ask him, don'tcha think... Always -- mmm, feels good from this end..."

"You have a point," the other man murmured, and his fingers were so warm as they traced the slice of his cheek. "Are you having fun, Izuru?"

Not the distant Kira-kun any longer. Only unlike Ichimaru's use of his personal name, it did not feel like theft. Instead it was as if the name had always belonged to Aizen, and only now had he remembered, absently, to reclaim it. The shiver went all the way down to the root of his soul, and he trembled.

"I... I don't..."

"You ought to be," Aizen told him, chidingly. "What sort of host would I be if my guests failed to enjoy themselves?" He was the gentle mentor again, the man that Hinamori-kun had so adored, the man that Abarai-kun had looked up to, the man that he himself had respected deeply as a former member of the 5th Division. The man who had never existed.

And it should have been terrifying, but it was such a relief.

"Captain Aizen," he whispered. "It feels so--"

Another brush of thumb on his cheek, tracing the bone beneath his skin. He held his breath. "There is no shame in pleasure." The words seemed to press gingerly against everything he had ever believed in his life, breaking it apart. "If you don't like this, say so, and we will find something else to occupy our time."

He felt his captain's long arms slide around him like the coils of a snake, felt the next thrust crest inside him and then go suddenly, unbearably still. Izuru dug his nails into his palms and felt them cut into his skin. Oh, oh god.

They would find something else to occupy themselves--

They would leave him here like this--

Ichimaru's amusement was warm on his skin in the way that a thousand pinpricks would have seemed warm, the endless numbing pain giving an illusion of heat. He could feel it, in his bones, in his soul, and he knew there was no bluff here. They wanted him, he was sure of it, but men like these could find satisfaction in his pain as easily as their own pleasure.

He couldn't say it.

His captain seemed to know; always seemed to know. "Not going to?" he asked, sounding disappointed, and then he started to pull out, started to leave him empty. "Ahh, that's a shame."

If he could have moved, he would have, would have wrenched away to stop it. But the eyes were still on him, and he was still trapped somewhere within them, drowning slowly. "I... Please--"

"You should tell him," Ichimaru coaxed, and withdrew a little further, until all he could feel was the tip just inside him. "Tell him, and you'll feel so much better..." That tongue again, searing his flesh. Oh god. "Mmm, we'll make you feel so much better..."

"Gin," Aizen said mildly, and thankfully the younger man fell silent, only smiling into the back of his neck. "This is his choice."

He couldn't think, couldn't clear his head -- his very skin was constricting, hot and tight. He couldn't breathe, could barely speak.

"Please... Please," he managed breathlessly, "it's so hard to say..."

One hand released his jaw, and settled instead on top of his head, stroking his hair reassuringly. Izuru shut his eyes, and licked his lips. "Is it really? But it's only one little word, Izuru. Do you like this?"

It was so much easier to speak with his eyes closed that he wondered why he hadn't done it before. Only one little word. That made sense, even though some part of him knew it wasn't supposed to. "Yes," he whispered, and felt his face heat. "Yes, I like it."

"There," Aizen said gently. "Was that so terrible?"

His face was still on fire, but the grip had loosened enough to let him shake his head silently, so he did. His captain's lips parted and he felt teeth scrape over one of the bumps in his spinal cord, felt the arms fall away and hands settle on his hips instead. Preparing for a thrust that would seat him to the hilt again, all at once, almost brutal. Izuru bit his tongue waiting for it.

He was only peripherally aware of the other man moving, settling back into his chair again, parting those well-muscled thighs, but he knew when fingers curled around the base of his skull and drew him those few inches forward, compelling him with the lightest of touches to lower his head and--

"Captain Aizen," he heard himself beginning uncertainly.

If either man noticed his slip, they gave no sign.

"A good host does not fail to keep his guests entertained," Aizen said in a musing tone. "But nor is a good guest entirely ungrateful."

The scent of him was strong, musk and spice, but there was no hint of jasmine beneath his skin; he was not Ichimaru, he did not smell of funerals and death, he would never stink of fresh blood as though that scent were a part of him. The only foreign odor here was something clean and crisp, like soap. It was not wholly unappealing.

Izuru wet his lips and wondered if the taste would be the same.

Eyes slipping shut, he opened his mouth to find out.

And as the head of it brushed his tongue, slick already with the first bead of liquid, his captain made good on the promise of that thrust, driving all the air out of him in a desperate groan, choking him on hard salty heat. He half-expected Aizen to object, offer another bemused rebuke about his supposed fragility, but the man only laughed quietly and tightened his grip to keep him still.

(and that's just what you want, isn't it, izuru?)

He understood, then, in a rush of lucidity. They were going to take him at the same time, from both ends. Filling him utterly, the only way he had never been filled before. He would be left to rock and struggle between them as each thrust threatened to overbalance him, impaling himself helplessly with every movement, because with his arms pinned to his back he could not catch himself if he started to fall.

It should have been too much: too humiliating, too cruel. He shouldn't have been more aroused than he was mortified, shouldn't have felt blind with need, desperate to feel it -- this, them -- deeper. Shouldn't have shoved his hips back to meet the next plunge, and gasped around the flesh in his mouth as it brushed that spot.

So many should haves. Sometimes it felt as if his life were made of all the things he should and shouldn't do...

Things that made him good, and things that made him bad...

And he didn't want to be bad, but--

He closed his lips tightly and suckled, lashing his tongue through the liquid at the slit, the way that his captain had always liked. He licked around the hot shape of it, slowly and languorously, tasting the crisp cleanness, tasting the musk and sweat. Tasting the salty-bitter flavor of his pre-ejaculate, and feeling almost as if he were watching himself duck and bob his head, as if he were someone else entirely.

And he didn't want to be bad, but--

The rhythm inside him was speeding, each grind faster and less controlled than the last, and the feeling of Ichimaru's perfectly-even nails scoring the skin of his hips made him dizzy, brought him so close to completion that he teetered and moaned thickly.

He didn't want to be bad (really? are you sure?), but he didn't want this to ever stop, and as the pleasure built, as the rough seesaw of his captain's cock inside rubbed him raw and burst stars in the dark sky of his eyelids, Izuru found that he was slowly forgetting to care. It felt like falling, and the landing would hurt, would break him in so many places, but right now there was so much freedom in the drop.

Ichimaru climaxed first, and the way he reached orgasm was almost painfully nostalgic, because this too he did sharply, slyly, and usually with that smile still clinging to the corners of his mouth. There was no cry, only three quick short jerks of those angular hips, a soft shudder that he could feel in the hands on his hips, and then the strange sensation of his captain releasing in thick jets.

The grin came to rest just above his shoulder blades in a brush of lips that was not a kiss, and then Ichimaru embraced him again, propping himself up on his pointed chin as if to watch, and not--

--not pulling out, so that he could still feel the softened penetration while Aizen shifted beneath him, muscles flexing everywhere as the man everyone had thought so kind lifted up off the chair and changed the angle so that he could force himself an inch or two down Izuru's throat, grip so powerful that even what little gag reflex he had would not have helped him force the invader out.

They had used him, he realized, with another jolt of clarity. They had used his body, and whatever Aizen's pretty words, this wasn't gratitude -- wasn't even about him -- he was only a hole for the two of them to fuck, and when he had swallowed they would both withdraw, there was no reason for them to even unbind him, and he would be left here, naked and dirty with the evidence of their abuse...

A broken toy, and hadn't Aizen said that broken things were worthless...

What had he done? What was the matter with him? He had been so cooperative, so good in their horrible way, had all but begged them for this, just so that they would finish him, and now surely they were going to leave him wanting anyway--

The liquid hit his tongue, hot and sticky, and Izuru very nearly choked; he had been too distracted to notice the stiffening, the stillness and the graceful arch of Aizen's body, but he heard the sigh, low and husky with deep satisfaction, and he felt it fill his mouth, leak down the back of his throat, drown him in the intense taste of it, drown him until he found himself sitting back on his haunches, with no idea of how he had got there except the lingering warmth of tapered fingers on his cheek.

He was empty.

He was so hard it hurt, stood rigidly between his legs and almost brushed his belly when he breathed.

Behind him, Ichimaru was pulling his clothes back on, and even without seeing him he knew that his captain was stretching lithely, more animal contentment than man, because that was what sex did to him.

Aizen stepped forward, and he was clothed, too, everything straightened and perfect, as if he had done nothing so untoward as spill his seed -- as if the last hour had been spent with a good book and a warm cup of tea.

Somehow, that was worst of all. His captain would have lips flushed and chapped, hair mussed, disheveled in the sort of way that some found extremely attractive, as if the exertion had been something devoured for sustenance, as if some part of him had become food and vanished into his captain's body -- but with this man, the man who had orchestrated everything, he had made no impact whatsoever.

He ducked his head and took deep breaths to keep the hot, humiliating tears at bay. It was such a ridiculous thing to be upset over, of all that had just occurred. He was such a fool.

Fingers landed lightly on his chin, and tipped it up. Izuru was slightly surprised to find them both gazing down at him, and more surprised by Captain Ichimaru's faint little frown.

"Don't look so sad, Izuru. This is fair, isn't it?" An innocent tilt of his head, the same angle he would tilt it to when he told the others, Ohhh, did I hurt him so much? I didn't mean to. "Made you feel real good, didn't we?" The smile spread, razor blade thin. "You're not so greedy you'd want two, are you?"

"No one likes to be left bereft, Gin," Captain Aizen said with what could have been compassion, and could have been droll amusement. His eyes, Izuru realized slowly, were like mirrors. They reflected back whatever you wanted to see.

It only made him feel even more insignificant, even more nonexistent.

Only then one of the most powerful shinigami to ever live went down on one knee, reached between the legs of a stupid little nobody, and cupped his desperate need. The cradle of his fingers was light, delicate, and barely there -- but Izuru was so close, and so extremely relieved, that he needed nothing else to gasp and come hard.

He woke alone, perhaps another hour later, and found himself in a much smaller room with a small high window in the wall that pooled moonlight on the floor. There was a single long couch near him, and he forced his bruised body to stand, worked his way over to it and lay down on his side to sleep again.

In the morning, he would be able to think clearly, and Izuru already knew he was going to be sick with himself, was going to wish he had never been born; was going to feel such guilt. He would have betrayed the 13 Protection Divisions, those he wanted to call his friends, the memory of his parents. Even if they forgave him, and told him that it wasn't his fault, and pretended that he had had no choice in the matter, he would still be as much a traitor to them as anyone here, and for much more shallow reasons.

But in spite of everything, in spite of his friends, in spite of himself...

He wasn't entirely sure he would care.