Defence Mechanisms

Title: Defence Mechanisms
Author: Ansela Jonla
Fandom: Bleach
Rating: R
Warnings: extremely dubious consent, bordering on non-con
Summary: Komamura accepts Ichigo's offer of a place to stay for the night. Neither of them expect what happens next.
Word Count: 3896
Notes: There is no excuse. This pairing was put into my head by someone on fanficrants, who mentioned that there was no Komamura/Ichigo out there. I promptly wrote this to cover that lack. Beta'd by signed_up

"Ah, Komamura-taichou, how wonderfully unexpected to see you here," Urahara chirped, hiding his face behind his fan as he looked up at the gargantuan Captain. "Not this early, anyway. You weren't supposed to arrive for another half a day."

"There was a change in schedule," Komamura said, not bothering to try and enter the shop that Urahara stood in the doorway of. He wouldn't fit, which was one reason he was there. "I guess my gigai is not yet ready then."

"It will be completed in eight hours, Komamura-taichou. Until then, why don't you patrol the town. I'm sure Kurosaki-san wouldn't mind not having to make up an excuse to leave class every time a Hollow appears." With that Urahara snapped the fan shut and turned back into the shop, quickly vanishing into the back rooms. Komamura frowned. There was something that Urahara wasn't telling him.

A few hours later Komamura was seated on the edge of a bridge, idly scrolling through messages on his communicator as he waited for something to happen, ignoring the trains that passed at high speeds every few minutes. A few Hollows had popped up around the town, but they were all weak and easily dispatched with a single blow. He would meditate to pass the time, but the noise level in the living world was unbelievable compared to even the loudest parts of Seireitei, even Eleventh Division during their 'training sessions'.

A sound from below caught his attention, and he returned his communicator to the inside of his kosode as he looked down to investigate. Seven humans had an eighth surrounded underneath him, various crude weapons in their hands as they circled their prey almost cautiously as they drove him towards the shelter of the bridge. Komamura wondered why they were being so careful, staying out of range of fists and feet and only striking from behind, when the victim was limping and had blood dripping down from his face. A lashing of reiatsu and a flash of distinctive orange hair as one of them abandoned caution and was thrown back with a powerful kick for his troubles answered that for him. Even in his human body Kurosaki Ichigo was a powerful fighter.

He was losing though, Komamura realised. For some reason he wasn't putting as much weight on his right leg as he could do, and his left elbow was beginning to bruise and swell from an earlier blow. Kurosaki also seemed unable to see properly from his swelling left eye, and his right was filling with blood from the wound on his head. Komamura watched as one of his attackers darted forwards and scored a line across his back, that would have been a stab to Kurosaki's internal organs had he not turned and backhanded the coward into a bridge support.

"Piss off, would ya. I ain't done nothing to get in your way recently," Kurosaki yelled, ducking under a metal pole and hammering his fist into the gut of the guy wielding it. There were only five of his attackers still standing now, but they were all keeping their distance.

"We don't like fags," one of the thugs snarled. Komamura labelled him as the leader, due to the simple fact that all the others nodded and murmured agreement with his statement. "Never know when they're going feel us up in the locker room, do we?"

Kurosaki's mumbled response seemed to anger them, because two of them rushed forwards at once with weapons raised. He ducked under the nailed plank of wood aimed for his head and grabbed at the chain, letting it wrap around his arm with a feral grin. Before the guy on the other end could let go he yanked it forwards, moving at the same time so he was behind him. It took only a few seconds for the guy to stop struggling against his own chain wrapped around his neck, and Kurosaki casually dropped him as soon as he did. Now he faced only four of the thugs, who were looking more uncertain about their chances.

"You're a monster, Kurosaki! Fight fair!" Komamura snorted from his vantage point. Someone who led a seven on one attack didn't really have any room to talk about being fair. Kurosaki didn't seem to look amused though, and he seemed bored with dodging and retaliating only when attacked.

Komamura was certain that the two thugs Kurosaki took down next wouldn't have known what hit them. Even without shunpo Kurosaki was fast, and one went to join his friend against the bridge support, with an imprint of Kurosaki's fist in his face, and the other collapsed where he stood, crumpling over the foot embedded in his abdomen. The one with the plank of wood tried to attack from behind at that moment, but he was soon thrown backwards with what had to at least be a broken nose. Only the leader was left standing, and he looked more confident than he should have done as he fiddled with the bag he carried over one shoulder.

"Give up," Kurosaki said. Komamura frowned as he heard a disturbing gurgle in his voice, indicative of a punctured lung. "Just walk away and leave me alone. Better yet, let me walk away while you call an ambulance for your friends."

"Not a chance, Kurosaki. This time I'll be the one walking away from the fight."

Komamura didn't have time to wonder how many times Kurosaki had fought this gang in the past, as the leader pulled a wakizashi from inside his bag. From the look on Kurosaki's face, confusion and annoyance quickly giving way to smug confidence, this was a new thing for him to face in his human form, but not something that would faze him for long.

The human was an amateur, waving the blade around with less grace and skill than even a first year Academy student. Kurosaki wasted no time in ducking under the blade and planting his fist firmly in the idiot's jaw, sending him flying back with a crunch. Dropping to his knees next to the moaning thug, kicking the sword out of his hand almost as an afterthought, Kurosaki rifled through his pockets until he found a phone.

Komamura waited until Kurosaki staggered back up to the road, having finished talking to whoever it was he'd had a desire to call so urgently, before he used shunpo to place himself next to the substitute. Sensing the reiatsu flare, Kurosaki turned to face Komamura, almost unbalancing on his injured leg. Komamura carefully caught him by his right arm and held him steady until he found his footing again.

"I didn't expect there to be any other Shinigami around. How long you been watching?" He coughed as he finished speaking, a splash of bright red blood staining the hand that he used to cover his mouth. "Damn."

"I was there when you arrived," Komamura stated worriedly. "What was that about?"

"That bastard Renji." Kurosaki rolled his eyes at Komamura's look of frustrated confusion. "He kissed me. Right in the middle of the hallway. So everyone in school thinks I'm gay. Which I might be, but it's not really any of their business. I'm not interesting in a relationship with anyone right now. Too much hassle."

"And some people object to that?" Komamura wasn't any less confused. Relationships between male Shinigami were normal, sometimes even encouraged in the higher ranks. It was also common knowledge that Abarai was currently in a relationship with Hisagi, making it illogical that he would just kiss Kurosaki for no reason.

"Yeah. Stupid bastard shouldn't have showed up at school drunk and in a gigai." Kurosaki kicked a stone out of his path, smiling slightly as it shattered against a street lamp ahead of him. "I'm gonna kick his ass next time I see him in Soul Society."

People were giving Ichigo a wide berth as he staggered along covered in blood and seemingly talking to himself, but he didn't seem to care. Komamura supposed that it was easier for him that way, since there was no chance of someone knocking into his injuries. One of the girls he passed seem to recognise him, but he waved off her offer of help. Komamura followed as he stumbled in seemingly random directions.

"Where are you going, Kurosaki?"

"Inoue's. She'll heal me better than if I go home or to the hospital." He stopped and looked around. "Shouldn't have let them hit me round the head so many times. I'm lost."

Komamura wondered again how often Kurosaki got into fights with the humans from his school. He certainly didn't seem to be too concerned about his injuries or the fact that he probably had a concussion. "I'll take you there with shunpo," he growled, grabbing Kurosaki's arm and vanishing while there were no humans around to see their departure.

Kurosaki was unconscious before they got there, his injured human body unsuited for the speed of shunpo. Komamura was impressed by Inoue's reaction to the situation, and her unflinching acceptance of the fact that her best friend had been brought to her unconscious, battered and covered in his own blood. He left Kurosaki in her capable hands, intending on returning to Urahara's to check on the progress of his gigai.

Urahara was waiting for him in front of the shop, an empty gigai lying on the swept ground beside him like a life-sized doll. Landing lightly on the ground, Komamura nodded politely to Urahara.

"You look troubled, Komamura-taichou," Urahara said gravely. "Did something happen?"

"I encountered Kurosaki Ichigo a short while ago." Komamura frowned at the hard glint that appeared in Urahara's shadowed eyes. "He was in the middle of a fight."

"How many this time?" Urahara didn't seem surprised by the news, only resigned.

"Seven. He took a beating but he won." Komamura slipped into the gigai, grimacing as he was forced into a smaller, human form. Urahara held up a mirror for him to inspect himself in. His hair was the same colour as his fur usually was, and his skin was tanned. His eyes were still golden, but set in a human face instead of above a canine muzzle. It was disconcerting for Komamura, and he resolved not to look in a mirror whilst in the gigai unless he couldn't avoid it.

"Sounds about right. It take it he's with Inoue then?" Urahara wasn't quite so disadvantaged in talking to Komamura now, no longer having to crane his neck quite so much to look the much taller Captain in the eye. Komamura nodded absently, stretching to try and accustom himself to the new body he was in. "Good, good. I will be seeing you again then?"

"When I return the gigai." Komamura turned and left, leaving Urahara standing alone in front of the shop.

--

"Seriously, Komamura-san, if you'd said something earlier you wouldn't have gotten so wet," Kurosaki grumbled, frowning as he poked at the buttons on the dryer. "I'm sorry about the clothes, but nothing I have will fit you, and my dad's taste in clothing is rather pathetic."

"It would be rude of me to complain when you are offering me hospitality, Kurosaki," Komamura replied, sipping at the tea that Kurosaki had given him. He'd been watching Kurosaki's house, debating whether to find a hotel or just look for somewhere halfway dry and sheltered from the rising wind and rain, when Kurosaki had come out and dragged him inside. Apparently his family weren't home and so there was no reason why Komamura couldn't stay there for the night.

"Huh? Rukia never stopped complaining. It's not like I forced her to live in my closet or anything." Kurosaki stabbed at a final button, smirking as the machine rumbled into life. "Why can't Yuzu just leave instructions on how to work these things?"

"Maybe your mother doesn't want you to feel like you have to do the housework?" Komamura offered. Kurosaki stilled in the kitchen, his reiatsu flaring up wildly before he brought it back under control.

"Yuzu's my sister. My mum died years ago, when I was just a kid," Kurosaki said quietly. Before Komamura could apologise for his mistake a loud screech and a beeping sound filled the house. "Hollow?"

Komamura flipped his Soul Pager open, looking at the screen which was showing a single flashing dot. "A weak one, according to this reading. It should be no problem." He dug into his pocket for his gikongan dispenser, only to come up empty-handed. It was still in his other clothes, the ones now in the rumbling machine.

"I'll deal with it. You've been taking care of them all afternoon." Kurosaki pressed his shrieking badge to his chest, separating his physical and spiritual bodies and leaving the physical one to slump on the kitchen floor. "Which direction?"

"North, about two of your steps." Komamura remembered seeing Kurosaki in pursuit of a Hollow once, and how far he'd gone in a single step that time. Kurosaki's skill with shunpo exceeded his own, that much was plainly obvious. "It's moving fast though, to the east." Another two signals appeared on the screen, causing Komamura to frown. "There are two more now."

"I'll deal with them as well then. Where?" Kurosaki was half out the window, having somehow managed to contort himself so that he fitted himself and Zangetsu through the space without damaging anything.

"Take the Soul Pager. Me giving you directions now is no use when your targets are moving." Komamura threw the device to Kurosaki, who glanced at it briefly before shoving it inside his kosode. He vanished as soon as his body was clear of the window, disappearing into the storm in a burst of shunpo. Komamura closed the window once he was gone, shutting out the cold wind and rain. Turning back to the table, Komamura tripped over the still form of Kurosaki's body, sprawled uncomfortably on the hard floor. Taking pity on the younger Shinigami, Komamura picked it up and carried it through to the other room, laying it carefully on the couch, out of the way and in a far more comfortable position.

Kurosaki returned quickly, sliding the window open with practiced ease and shaking himself violently as soon as he was inside the house, his zanpakutou dropping from his white-knuckled grip and clattering on the floor. His shihakushou was dripping wet, and not just with water, Komamura noticed. Some sort of thick, glutinous slime dripped from Kurosaki's chest and kosode and onto the floor, forming little islands in the middle of the rapidly growing puddle under Kurosaki's shivering body. The wind whipped through the kitchen, tugging at hair and clothes until Kurosaki slammed the window closed once more and securely fastened it on its latch.

He really was quite beautiful though. Even now, trembling with cold and clad in baggy, sodden clothes, Kurosaki was a wonderful sight to behold. The way he gave up trying to unpick the rain-tight knot of his sash with cold-numbed fingers and slumped against the kitchen worktops, sliding down until he was sitting on the floor with his back against the cupboards was pure poetry. Wriggling and twisting, his skin shining wetly where the artifical lights of the kitchen caught the rain still clinging to tanned flesh, Kurosaki tugged his kosode and shitagi free of his hakama and pulled them off, revealing a body fit to be carved in marble.

"You look cold, Kurosaki," Komamura said, kicking the water-logged pieces of cloth to one side as he sat next to the younger Shinigami, wrapping one arm around shivering shoulders.

"It's cold out there. Is warm in here though," Kurosaki mumbled, leaning into Komamura's touch as if seeking the warmth of his body. His neck pressed up against Komamura's nose briefly as Kurosaki repositioned himself so Komamura's arms enveloped him, letting the Captain take in his clean, intoxicating scent. A scent that, even to his currently muted senses, was overwhelmingly powerful and addictive.

Kurosaki mewled, arching his back and grinding against Komamura as the Captain rubbed warm hands over his icy chest and stomach. Komamura growled deep in his throat, a sound more suited to his normal form than the human gigai he wore, as Kurosaki's ass pressed against the growing hardness in his borrowed trousers. He wanted more of that scent, more of Kurosaki. A small part of his mind screamed that this was wrong, that he shouldn't be doing this, that something was affecting his mind, but he ruthlessly silenced it.

"No," Kurosaki whispered as Komamura's hand found the slit of his hakama. He repeated himself more forcefully, trembling fingers digging into Komamura's wrist. "NO! Not here. Not in the kitchen."

Kurosaki shakily pushed himself to his feet, before staggering towards the stairs on shaking legs. He glanced back when he reached the foot of the stairs, his eyes filled with fire and lust that made Komamura growl and give chase to the retreating figure.

Even with Kurosaki's headstart, Komamura caught up to him before he was halfway up the stairs, spinning him round and pulling his head down for a rough, victorious kiss. The urge to pin the younger Shinigami to the stairs and take him there and then rushed through him, but Kurosaki was already wriggling away, continuing up the stairs towards whatever destination he had in mind. Komamura followed, stalking after the younger Shinigami like a wolf hunting its prey. He'd be patient and let Kurosaki get to whatever place he thought was appropriate for what was to come. They had plenty of time.

--

The bright sunlight streaming into the bedroom made Komamura wince and close his eyes before he even managed to fully open them. His head was pounding almost as much as if he'd gotten into a drinking contest with Zaraki, Matsumoto and Kyouraku again. The slight sound of someone trying to be stealthy while wearing geta and failing miserably forced him to open his eyes again and face the small scraps of memory that were fighting for attention in his mind.

Urahara stood the door to the room, hard eyes staring out at Komamura from under the brim of his ridiculous hat. Komamura nodded to him, carefully disentangling himself from his partner and grabbing the pants that had been discarded to the side at some point.

Urahara was gone by the time Komamura was finished dressing himself, the steady clack of his geta retreating down the stairs. Komamura followed, surprised to see that the exiled Captain had made some tea. Komamura sat down at the empty place, avoiding Urahara's attempts to catch his eye. He noticed that Kurosaki's zanpakutou was no longer lying discarded on the floor, but was instead wrapped and carefully placed against the wall in a dignified manner. He wondered how long Urahara had been in the house, and what his relationship was with Kurosaki if he was so quick to handle the other Shinigami's zanpakutou in such a manner.

"I am his mentor, Komamura-taichou. More than once he's driven himself to train so hard that he collapses with zanpakutou in hand," Urahara said, as if reading Komamura's mind. "I know what happened last night."

Komamura looked down at the table, unwilling to meet Urahara's eyes and see the disgust that was surely there. "What happened last night... there are no excuses. I raped him."

"I assure you, Komamura-taichou, that if I thought that was the case we would not be having this conversation right now." Urahara said quietly. A thin layer of red reiatsu swirled around him briefly, and the cane in his hand pulsed with restrained power.

Komamura's blood seemed to freeze in his body. He played the fool so well that it was easy to forget that this man was not only the former Captain of Twelth Division, but also the former Third Seat of Second Division. He could take Komamura apart without breaking a sweat, with no way to trace it back to him, if he thought Komamura had done anything to harm Kurosaki.

"I'm not saying it wasn't rape, Komamura-taichou. I'm just saying that neither of you was at all capable of preventing what happened last night. I'm just surprised that you had enough self-control between you to get to Kurosaki-san's bedroom, even if you managed to miss the actual bed."

"He opened his home to me and I took advantage of that."

"Kurosaki-san fought several Hollows last night, correct?" Komamura nodded. "One of them hit him with something, an attack that he probably didn't think was worth dodging, or didn't see coming. It's not unusual, I'm used to seeing Kurosaki-san stumbling in with acid burns from an attack that he didn't think was dangerous because it didn't harm the non-organic objects it struck."

"What does that have to do with anything?" Komamura asked sharply. He didn't need Kurosaki's combat history, especially since he didn't seem to have any kind of injury, acid burn or not.

"If that Hollow had been engaged by a group of Shinigami then it would have escaped. Its saliva contained an extremely strong, very fast-acting pheromone that would have caused chaos in any standard attack squad. Unfortunately for that Hollow, Kurosaki-san was alone and so there was no way it could take advantage of lust-driven distractions to escape. Once Kurosaki-san returned here though, well you know what happened better than I do."

"What is your basis for this theory, Urahara-san?"

Urahara smiled and took a sip from his cup before answering. "I'm afraid that everyone in Karakura with the ability to sense reiatsu would have felt what was happening between the two of you last night, Komamura-taichou. I was curious as to what was going on, especially knowing how careful you usually are with your control, and so came to investigate. The substance clinging to Kurosaki-san's kosode intrigued me, and so I took it back to my lab to investigate it. That's how I can guess at what happened last night and why."

"I see. And you didn't think to stop what was happening?"

"I touched the substance. If I'd gone to try and separate the two of you then I would have ended up either joining you or fighting one of you. I'm pretty certain that such a situation wouldn't have ended well." Urahara placed his cup back down on the table gently and smiled at Komamura. "If you don't want to wait for Kurosaki-san to wake up, then I will do so. Someone needs to explain what happened last night."

"It would be better if you did that, Urahara-san. Right now I don't think I could face him." Komamura stood up and collected the pile of dry, neatly-folded clothes from the end of the table. "Tell Kurosaki-san that I'm sorry for any injury I might have caused him last night."

"I'll do that, Komamara-taichou. He'll probably look for you himself later." Urahara smiled msteriously before flicking his fan out to cover what little of his face wasn't shadowed by the brim of his hat. "You'd be surprised about how mature he can be when he wishes."

Komamura nodded, carefully placing the clothes that Kurosaki had lent him the night before on the table, and made his way out of the house. If Kurosaki did find him before he returned to Soul Society, or even afterwards, he wouldn't complain if the young Shinigami felt it within his rights to attack him for what he'd done.