Dead in Love

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Summary: Ulquiorra is a typical drug-addled nihilist and Grimmjow is the homeless man he sometimes sleeps with. Grimmjow might be going crazy, with his talk of some strange desert world, and Ulquiorra finds himself caught up in his insanity.



A/N: I'm starting another multi-part but this one will be one of my short ones: three parts not counting the prologue. All the espada will be in it, they will each get a smut scene with either Grimmjow or Ulquiorra, and there will be some bizarre semblance of a plot buried in all the gratuitous sex. But not all the sex will be pretty. If that sounds like your kind of thing, well, enjoy ^_^

Also, A Modern Courtship will be updated later this week.

One more thing: short story long, I was thinking recently about how some of my fics were only up on aff. In case anything (God forbid, knock on wood) happened to the database here, those fics would be lost. So I backed up all my fics at archiveofourown.org. It's still new so you don't get much feedback (or even hits), but the format and features are pretty awesome. I recommend anyone who wants a second archive to post there. There's a waitlist, but right now it goes pretty quickly. I think I was #45 when I signed up and I got an invitation a few hours later.

Rating: NC-17+ for lots of strange and explicit sexual activity

 

Dead in Love

"I'm not afraid to let you kill me, I know

No other way to feel your hollow bones

I fade into the shadow with you, I know

So dead in love, so dead in love

Did you hear my heart stop beating

Guess it's never enough, no it's never enough

Until my heart stops beating"

~ Dead in Love, Josh Homme in The Desert Sessions

 

Prologue

It was cold. A beautiful kind of cold than ran right through his bones. As though he was laying in the middle of a field of snow, as though he was melting into it, his body turned to ice and nothingness. This was his world; this was what the world should be. In the periphery of his senses, there was another body. Above him, around him. Soft grunts and pleasure that only meat could provide. . . but he was beyond just meat right now, he had transcended the confines of his own body.

Ulquiorra woke up. The first thing he saw was the cracked, gray ceiling above his head. He could hear the water leaking from an old faucet. Drip. Drip. And, louder than that, someone rummaging through his refrigerator. Ulquiorra sat up. Warm liquid dripped out of his ass, right onto new silk boxers. Someone had fucked him while he had been too drugged to do anything about it. Someone had fucked him, and the bastard had put his boxers back on without even cleaning him up.

"Grimmjow."

The rummaging stopped. A shock of blue hair appeared from the top of his refrigerator door, and then two disinterested eyes. The only light in the one-room apartment was from a neon sign from across the alley way, and it shone in through the window to bath Grimmjow's handsome features in an eerie light.

Life was in grayscale. The refrigerator, the walls, the countertops, everything a different shade of gray. And right dab in the middle of it all was Grimmjow, a splash of peach and blue bathed in red light.

"What?" One word, betraying nothing but a light tinge of boredom.

"What are you doing here?"

"Fuck if I know," Grimmjow replied. "Don't remember anything. One minute I'm in the park, next minute I'm here in your apartment. Like I'm traveling through fucking time and space."

"You're going crazy."

But, no, that wasn't right. Grimmjow had always been crazy, ever since the first time they had met. Ulquiorra stood up to go take a piss, noting that he was more sore than usual. He supposed Grimmjow had been particularly rough. But then again, Grimmjow was always a little bit too rough.

"At the very least," Ulquiorra said, "you could have waited until I was conscious."

"What's the point?" Grimmjow asked. "I wanted to get my rocks off an hour ago, so I did. Besides, fucking you stoned out of your mind isn't any different than fucking you awake. Like I'm fucking a corpse, either way."

"So why do you still do it?"

He could see Grimmjow shrug in his mind, even though he couldn't see Grimmjow himself as he entered the bathroom.

"Still feels good," Grimmjow said. "It's still a hot hole to get off in."

Ulquiorra didn't bother shutting the door. He peeled off his boxers and tossed them in the corner with all his other dirty clothes. He stood in front of the toilet, watching as his piss came out an almost brown color. That probably wasn't a good sign. As the stream of his urine hit the toilet bowl he could hear his microwave running, that strange radioactive hum followed by three beeps. Done. He shook his cock out and made his way to the sink, then washed his hands.

His reflection stared back at him from a cracked, dirt-encrusted mirror. His skin was beyond pale; there was a dull gray pallor to it that matched his walls. His eyes were sunken into his head, the pupils dilated, the green of his irises too bright to be natural. That strange luminescence would dim as the drugs faded from his system, but Ulquiorra knew that by then he would probably have taken another hit. There was nothing else to do, after all. Ennui bore down on him like an unbearable weight, the listless city around him providing all the entertainment of an analog clock.

Do drugs or fuck Grimmjow. Ulquiorra preferred the former.

He left the bathroom and slipped on a pair of jeans. No boxers. Three steps was all it took to get to the kitchen, to pour himself a glass of water from the tap. He sat down and watched as Grimmjow ate leftover pad thai that Ulquiorra had bought maybe three days ago.

"I was serious, you know," Grimmjow said, in between bites. "About traveling through time and space. Sometimes I'm here, the next minute I'm in the Other World. And sometimes I'm nowhere. Monday I'm sleeping in a park. Wednesday I'm fucking you. Saturday I'm shapeshifting into a panther in a huge desert. And nothing in between."

"You should see a psychologist about that," Ulquiorra said.

Grimmjow scowled. "No, I'm telling you, it's real. You're there, too, in the desert. I've seen you."

"I've never been to any desert." He had never stepped foot outside of this city. This gray, decaying city, full of tall buildings and wretched people and absolutely nothing of note.

"You're there," Grimmjow said, blue eyes burning bright with conviction. "I see you."

"You need help."

Grimmjow scoffed, lips twisting downward in an ugly kind of way. "You're acting like you actually give a shit."

"When did I say that?" Ulquiorra asked. "I never offered any help. I merely made an observation that you need some. As long as your insanity doesn't affect me, I could care less what you do."

"Yeah. Sure. You don't feel anything about anything, so why should you care about me?"

"And you feel too much," Ulquiorra countered. Too rash, too hotheaded, too emotional. Grimmjow was all id and no ego.

Grimmjow visibly bristled at the accusation. His muscles tensed, and for a moment it looked as though he might pounce. But then he relaxed. He set his chopsticks down on the table and got up. "You're right. Why should I give a shit if you're worried about me or not? All you're good for is a fuck every now and then, and not even a decent one at that."

Ulquiorra didn't even look up as Grimmjow made his way to the front door. The man had come for what he wanted. As far as Ulquiorra was concerned, now he could just leave. Grimmjow didn't disappoint him. Within seconds the door opened and closed, and Grimmjow's footsteps echoed down the empty hallway. Ulquiorra drank the rest of his water, then went back to his bed to take another hit of his favorite drug, some artificial compound that had just been cooked up. Ice-nine. It could destroy you just as efficiently as its namesake, if you let it, and much more subtly too.

Ulquiorra remembered the first time he had met Grimmjow, but in his memories, everything was covered in frost and snow.

An empty street. Odd, really, how a street can be so void of life, while one block over people thrum back and forth en mass. Ulquiorra walks with bare feet over snow. Part memory and part dream, the cold envelops him, forms ice crystals in his blood. Off to the side, in an alley way, there is a sound. Indiscernible to most, but Ulquiorra is more astute than that. Someone is following him.

Ulquiorra keeps walking. For now, at least, he doesn't care. The footsteps are well hidden behind him, keeping mere yards away at all times. Finally, the one in pursuit makes his move. A tall frame, topped with blue hair. A t-shirt that fits snugly over a broad chest and tattered corduroy pants. Too fast he's beside Ulquiorra, and he lifts his leg up for a kick.

In Ulquiorra's mind, the man's movements are done in slow motion. Strength and technique well up inside of him. He doesn't know from where, or else he doesn't remember. In one move he dodges the high kick. In a few more moves he has the man's arm in his hands, has it pressed against the man's back, and he is twisting, twisting as the man cries out, until he hears a satisfying crack. He lets go and the man falls forward onto the ground. The man's head hits the wall before he turns around, cradling his arm to his chest. Angry blue eyes glare up at Ulquiorra. Blue the color of glowing azurite. They burn into Ulquiorra's psyche, stirs something familiar inside him.

"Trash," Ulquiorra says. He takes out the cash that is crumpled in his pocket and tosses it at the man. The man winces as it bounces off his cheek to land in the snow. "That's what you wanted, isn't it? Take it. A few dollars is more than good enough for a pitiful creature like you."

The man snarls, an ugly, feral thing. "Fuck you. Keep your fucking money."

Ulquiorra doesn't respond, just walks away.

The man calls after him. A taunt, full of baseless pride. "How do you know I was even trying to mug you? Maybe I was trying to rape you."

When Ulquiorra turns the man is gone. There is an hole in the snow from his body, and, next to that, the light imprint where a few crumpled dollars bills were just sitting. So much for baseless pride.

Fast forward, but just a bit.

Ulquiorra looks for a place to sit down. In one hand he holds a black plastic tray. The tray holds a sandwich and a bag of potato chips he probably won't eat. In his other hand he holds a bottle of water. The shop is busy, but most patrons rush in and out, stopping for only as long as it takes to stand in line. So it's not terribly hard to find a seat.

Ulquiorra sits down at a small table. Surprise flares briefly inside of him, though it doesn't show on his face or in his movements. At the table next to him is the blue-haired man, a bowl of soup sitting in front of him. Ulquiorra can smell it from where he sits, some faint scent of tomato and basil.

The man glares at him. "You're that asshole I met a few minutes ago. The one who fucking broke my arm."

"That was months ago," Ulquiorra says, though he's not sure what good it would do to argue with a crazy man. "If it was a moment ago, your arm would still be broken."

The man glances down at his arms, surprise registering on his features. He stretches them out, turns them at the elbows. Fully functional.

'Well," he says, back to glaring at Ulquiorra, "doesn't change the fact that you're a little prick."

This man. There is something about him, something that tugs at Ulquiorra's consciousness. In a world where he holds little interest in most things, Ulquiorra is interested in this man.

"I know you," The man says, out of nowhere. He leans forward, eyes narrow. "I've met you before."

"You met me a few months ago. I broke your arm."

"Nuh uh." The man leans forward even more. His eyes take on a faint glow. "I met you in the other world. Segunda Etapa Ulquiorra."

"While I admit you've discovered my name," Ulquiorra says, "the words you placed in front of it mean nothing to me."

"Yeah. Maybe. Maybe not." The man stares into his soup, as though it holds the answers for whatever questions are running through his mind. But then he pushes out of his chair without even touching this. "Fuck this shit. I'm going home."

"Home?" Ulquiorra asks, more out of reflex than any real curiosity.

"Yeah." The man's lips twist into a perverse mockery of a grin. "I live right across the street."

Ulquiorra watches the man go. He looks out the window. Across the street is a park.

Fast forward again, ten minutes this time.

Ulquiorra stands in front of a frozen park bench. In the distance children are playing. On the next bench over a woman feeds pigeons, cooing at them as they coo back at her.

"You know," the blue-haired man says, eyes taking on a predatory gleam as he licks his lips, "if you keep following me, I really will rape you."

"Fine," Ulquiorra says. "I don't mind."

The man follows him back home, but Ulquiorra fucks him against the wall of the hallway before they even reach Ulquiorra's apartment. It's quick and dirty, but satisfying nonetheless. When they get into the apartment they fuck again, on the kitchen table, Ulquiorra on the bottom this time. The man is a rough and inconsiderate lover, but Ulquiorra doesn't mind. It feels good. More importantly, it feels.

Drip.

Ulquiorra stirred from unconsciousness. How long he had been drugged, he didn't know. How many hits had he taken since Grimmjow's visit? Had he even left his apartment in that time? Time. . . such an artificial construct. A day could pass just as easily as a second, which could seem just as long as a week.

Drip. Drip. The leaky faucet. And then, Ulquiorra realized, a second set of breaths. Someone else's breathing, in harmony with his. He opened his eyes to find Grimmjow straddling him, looking down at him, face buried in the shadows. Hands press against his sternum.

"When did you get here?" Ulquiorra asked.

Grimmjow made no answer for the time being. His hands slid up to rest against slim collarbones. When Grimmjow did speak, his tone was contemplative, though there were still harsh undertones to it.

"Have you ever heard that story old man Aristophanes told?" he asked. "Way back when, people used to have two heads, four arms, four legs. Spinning round and round, like they were doing cartwheels. Then one day whatever God they prayed to decided to cut them in half, right down the middle. . . and that's us, you know. That's why people are always searching for their other half. But what do you do when you find him? How do you become whole again? You fucking can't, no glue's gonna do that shit. You just have to destroy the other half of you. . . so that there's only one of you left. That's the only way you can feel whole."

Fingers wrapped around his throat, pressing down with utmost deliberation. It didn't hurt so much. It felt good, actually, the heat and the pressure, and the increasing inability to think or feel. But then, as quickly as he was there, Grimmjow was gone. Ulquiorra breathed in deeply as he stared into empty space. He raised his fingers to his throat, so constricted just a moment before. Nothing. A dream, or a hallucination from the drugs. He could still feel ice in his veins. The only thing he could hear was dripping water. Ulquiorra sat up in his bed, and wondered if he should get his faucet fixed.

At some point in Ulquiorra's life, the phone rang. He contemplated just letting it ring until it went dead, but in the end he picked it up.

"Hello?"

The voice on the other end felt like fingernails tracing across his skin. "Ulquiorra Cifer? This is the police department. We have something here that belongs to you, if you would so kindly come to pick it up."

Before he could ask any questions the line went dead. He went, because he had nothing else to do. At least it was something to fill his day. He entered the police station, then walked down a dirty gray hallway. There was a rectangle of light at the end of it, broken only by a few steel bars and the silhouette of a man. A window into the inner belly of the station. He walked closer, to see eyes closed into slits and a wide, eerie smile.

"Ulquiorra Cifer?" the man said, and it sounded almost like a hiss. "So you're Grimmy's friend. Said you were his one phone call."

Grimmjow. Ulquiorra considered turning around and walking out of the station, but he had made it this far already. He might as well finish it. "What exactly am I here for?"

"Well, our little Grimmy was in another fight. Other guy's not pressing charges, probably too scared to, so he's free to go. We just need someone to sign out for him. You know, state that he won't be a nuisance to society."

"I can't do that," Ulquiorra said.

"Just a technicality." If possible, the grin just grew wider.

A clipboard appeared between them. The man pushed it out an opening at the bottom of the barred window. It was covered by text too small for Ulquiorra to read, and had a large rectangle at the bottom. Ulquiorra took the attached pen and signed.

"By the way, Mr. Cifer, when we picked him up Grimmy was pretty close to the site if the latest arson attack. You don't think he'd have anything to do with that, do you?"

"If he did," Ulquiorra said, "he'd no doubt be bragging about it."

The man chuckled. A flat, joyless sound. "Yeah. Suppose that's true. It's a shame, though, a whole family killed off."

Ulquiorra shrugged. A family of people who were no doubt waiting to die anyway. There was no meaning to anything people did; there was no meaning to their lives. It was almost an act of sympathy, their ends coming sooner rather than later.

The door next to the window was opened, and two uniformed officers pushed Grimmjow out. Grimmjow stumbled a few steps but caught himself, one palm hitting the hard wall with a resounding smack. The door closed again, and the man behind the window disappeared.

They walked through the city without saying anything. The sound of traffic, of tires squealing and cars honking. The sound of people walking past, of high heels and loafers on pavement. The sound of half-mumbled conversations, drifting in and out as they walked past. But not the sound of their voices; no noise filled the foot of space between them.

Once they got back to the apartment, Grimmjow pinned him to the wall. Ulquiorra's head hit gray stucco with a low thud, and his vision blurred for just one second. He easily pushed Grimmjow away, and Grimmjow knew well enough the power difference between them not to push it.

"I'm not in the mood," Ulquiorra said.

"Just like a cunt," Grimmjow said, sneering. "What's the matter, got a headache?"

Ulquiorra ignored him, knowing that anything else would provoke the man. If he ignored him, Grimmjow would disappear. Ulquiorra had done his good deed for the day, he didn't need to do another. Instead he went to his bed, took out a carefully folded piece of tissue paper from his nightstand. He opened it with careful fingers.

"Let me guess," Grimmjow continued, anger simmering underneath his skin like a pot of water about to boil. "Getting stoned again? Can't fucking do anything else, can you? Well, I'll tell you right now, I'm gonna fuck you bloody and raw once you're drugged up. I'm gonna fuck you so hard, you won't even be able to roll over for a week."

Four small crystals stared back at him, gleaming under refracted neon light. They were all uniform, each one identical to the last. He picked one up and placed it on his tongue. Dissolve and disperse. Grimmjow was still muttering at him, but he couldn't hear it anymore. His head hit his pillow.

Words drifted through his mind, even as the ice overtook him.

"I figured out why you don't want to fight me. You're afraid that we'll destroy each other."

Grimmjow's voice. Grimmjow's words. But for all Ulquiorra tried, he couldn't place it in his memories. Grimmjow had never said anything like that to him. So why was he remembering it?