The Reciprocal (Edit)

[tokyokitty161]

Please don't kill me for re-posting but I finally got this to my editor and then got off my lazy ass and fixed it up. I'm much prouder of it now and as always appreciate the reads or rereads!!

Title: The Reciprocal
Pairing: GinxKira (Bleach)
Rating: R
Warnings: Gay sex :P SPOILERS FOR CH 416
Words: ~8700
Summary: Kira doesn't expect other to understand his actions. There is only one person he ever knew would. But the audacity and will to dream such things goes beyond reason.


The Reciprocal

A Tokyo Kitty Production

Disclaimer: Don’t own Bleach. At this point all I’d want to own is the fandom (but only pieces of it)

A/N: After pressure from the lj community to write this I think I will (that’s what I get for leaking my brain juice all over public forums) but I think everyone could do with a little cheering up, myself included, and every timely fic idea I have I end up waiting too long to actually publish ::trashes alive Gin and Kira’s bankai idea in garbage bin:: But at least there’s still hope yet (kinda) and I will abuse that with an idea that I have barely developed past the “wouldn’t it be nice….” stage. Anyway, please enjoy and anyone who wishes to reward me with gift art is loved and cherished for all eternity. Also, please do not comment that in anime canon they have taken to always making his eyes blue. They were originally red back in Soul Society Arc and I liked them better that way. Moreover, this fic was conceptualized before the episode of his death came out where his eyes were more open than shut so if your only real comment is about his eye color go bother someone who cares (PS it’s not me).

0000

Even now long past the events of the Winter War they only say the same things to him. You look tired. Get some rest. Are you eating enough? I can handle some of your work. Do you need me to help? Don't think too much about it; it’s all for the best.

But the words were even hollower now than they had been when Kira had been separated from him only by dark sky and white, barren desert. But now in the wake of his passing people spoke of him as less of a monster hiding under the bed and more of an apparition from a long past nightmare that could be swiped away as easy as a lose hair from one’s shoulder.

But they had never really known the face of that monster, had they?

He gave his nights now as freely as he had given his days (or perhaps his body on the nights that he had still stood at his captain’s side). Rangiku worried for him that it was insomnia but the illusions of his restless form in a bed that he had barely occupied prior to the recent homecoming was no more real than those empty words of concern for his well-being. While others had grown skilled at manipulating words the blond had manipulated kidoh and he left in his wake every night nothing but an indistinguishable trail to walk amongst the dark night while the world dreamed around him.

His childhood home stood an impressive sentinel against the night but appeared no more alive in the dark than it had in the decades since Kira had left. Nothing lived there now except creaking wood and questionable sturdiness of years of neglect. His parents’ death had done its service at least to keep small Rukongai Rats away. All the children thought it was as haunted as its owner’s expression and did their best to stay away.

It was for the best that they didn’t know the reality of what ghosts lived within these old, dust covered walls.

Wood grated painfully against wood as the door slid open, then closed with only a light tap. He passed through empty halls slowly and soundlessly not caring to reflect on empty, remorseful space that greeted him. The house stood because Kira preferred a more physical representation of his guilt and abandonment than the regrets he kept inside. That and, despite numerous times that he had been asked to relinquish the property, there had always been a nagging thought telling him to hang on to it, for posterity’s sake and in case there was ever need; although he had no idea then what that need would look like.

A faint light shone from behind thin paper lattice although beyond the door it was swallowed by the surrounding darkness. This was the innermost room; with no outward facing windows or door save a single sliding frame for entering and exiting. This door Kira slid open soundlessly making barely enough space for his body before sliding into the warm chamber, shutting it just as soundlessly behind him.

This room he had cleaned of course. It would not do to have dust inflame his condition or mildew cause infections in open wounds although any such thing Kira had tended to and closed with dutiful hands, bandages and soft carefully dealt out energy long ago. Although there was no outward mark save the old scars Kira knew so well and the new ones he had learned to map the blond returned each night to heal what hadn’t already.

A soft teaching but incredibly strong voice had once told him back in the Fourth Division that “there was only so much they could heal. The rest was up to the will of the recipient to live”. Defying Unohana-taichou’s words were something few in all of the Gotei 13 ever did, or at least ever did again, but Kira hoped maybe just maybe this time the millennia’s old woman was wrong and that he could somehow reanimate these limbs by the sheer force of his own will.

Ichimaru’s, no longer taichou, body lay there flat on his back on a mat with blankets Kira had dug out of a moth eaten closet laid over him for added warmth. To another, perhaps it might look as if he were asleep. Though Kira knew from many restless nights that his lover never slept on his back; he always said it left him too open. Open to what? Old habits die real hard. What kind of habits?

“Maaa Izuru, ya always asked so many questions.”

He could hear in his head the grin in that voice and it seemed all the crisper in its tone when he stood before the man himself. Even if his captain had complained about his questioning it was his one and only deepest regret that he had stayed behind, watched Rangiku open a doorway to the Human World, even lent some of his own energy to stabilize that portal for her to go and say goodbye to the one man he had ever truly loved.

Surely Rangiku had loved him too. But not like this, not like this.

He wondered if Gin, not Ichimaru as they had always been in private rooms behind kidoh reinforced closed doors, had been expecting him to come instead of Rangiku. It was just the disillusioned jealous part of him that wished it; he would never know as he and Rangiku had not spoken much in the past months since that day. But it was the spiteful self-important part of himself that said if Gin ever did wake up, he corrected himself not if when, it was Kira who deserved all of the credit for digging his captain’s inanimate body out of the rubble, picking up the pieces of a crumpled form and an even more distorted life and trying to bring it back to some form of what had not just become his normality but his only way of living beyond sheer force of inertia hidden behind a mask of obligation.

He only really cared about the recognition from one person though.

The yellow glow of energy flowing from Kira’s arranged hands over the other’s chest faded as with a sigh his hands fell to his lap. Any hate or anger at the man in front of him due to the betrayal had ironically been healed by his own kidoh put into repairing wounds. Now, only cynical worry was bound between layers of crisp white bandages. In that way the past months had healed him and although the silence had done wonders for his own acceptance of the situation he found himself torn between wanting to hear that voice again and fearing it because Kira didn't know what he would do after that. Nonetheless the process seemed to be going well as he could sense there was no more disparity in reiatsu left to heal and it pleased him that that slow dip in energy seemed to be getting smaller day by day. However it worried him as it felt the man was somehow still leaking energy like a tire with the tiniest pin prick of a hole that despite his many attempts to find it Kira could do little more that pump the deficit back into him. He cast another barrier spell as neurosis made him worry the old one was getting weak and stood on shaky legs from sitting for so long to make some tea.

He had brought tea and the barest resemblance of food to have in the long nights if exhaustion ever loomed its head. The cupboard now held various medicinal remedies so that if, not if when, Gin woke up Kira had supplies to make whatever remedial potion the situation called for. With tea made he brought the kettle and two cups, always two just in case, with him back into the room that he entered with the same precision of grace and soundlessness before shutting the door behind him again.

Kira partook of the tea, holding the steaming cup in his hands for a while if only to enjoy the warmth. The few times he had touched his lover since bringing him here, always shy; a brush of long bony fingers or rearranging hair on his forehead,  he had felt feverishly warm in the moments after healing but slowly faded to coolness like warmth leaving a previously occupied bed. Though, Kira reflected that his captain’s touch had never been particularly warm per se, just left trails of fire of traitorous desire in its wake.

Although his thoughts were distracted he snapped to attention at the slight movement of a hand. It was barely more than an instant and even then more a visceral reaction, a jumping of nerves than a gesture, but to Kira it was just another moment of hope that he tucked away in his heart like a bird hoarding glistening candy wrappers.

Although in that moment he wanted nothing more than to reach out and take that hand he waited long tense heartbeats to see if it would come again.

Perhaps it was even the very breath that Kira held back in those moments that he gave to his captain but in the form of a sound that was like bone grinding on bone his chest rose in the first real inhale of breath Kira had seen since the night before Gin had left. His head rolled slowly to the side as if made of stone, raising his right hand slowly to brush hair from his face in a gesture the blond had witnessed a thousand times, stopping dead in front of his face, eyes wide in a way Kira had never found him in shock that his hand was even there in the first place.

Kira foresaw the next moment before it even happened and he was gently pushing Gin back into the mat to stop him from sitting up although he could barely believe it was even happening. “You mustn’t sit up or move.” Kira was instructing although the voice felt like it came from a third party somewhere above them as time itself slowed for him staring into Gin’s eyes.

Gin had never been one to obey anyone and even as Kira said that his head turned in the direction of the blond’s voice. “...Izuru?” His voice was unused and therefore harsh and foreign in its gravely sound. Even in this situation it was uncomfortable to be looked at by red eyes somehow softer in their haze of catching up with the time between when Kira had last seen them open what felt like another lifetime ago. Although he squinted in a mere shadow of the slanted gaze he usually maintained, there was something in the approximation of that old glance that made Kira think things could return to the way they were.

“Please don’t speak either. You need to drink or eat something as it’s been… it’s been a long time.” Kira could feel emotion brimming on the edge of his calm words and he looked away to gather his things in the room to make space for what he wasn’t sure if only because it was easier that way to handle his instability. He stood to bustle out of the room to fix something for his captain to drink but as he was about to leave the room he heard the words no louder than the sound of wind through trees barren from the frost of winter.

“Izuru…stay….”

From those two barely intelligible words the list of things to be done now that Gin was awake suddenly disappeared and with it Kira’s will to protest was undone.

“Yes.”

0000

It was hard for the blond to hide his satisfied mood during the busy days that fell between even busier nights now filled with various tasks structured towards recovering the parts of Gin that kidoh couldn’t touch. In the time that Kira was not going about his normal duties he could be found in the spacious libraries of Seireitei pouring over various texts on healing although he was careful to hide them among other kidoh books in preparation of excuses in the event anyone got too interested in his research. But days of this form of sleep deprivation were beginning to affect even him although sleep had been something Kira trained himself to not need a lot of.

Even with such preparation, exhaustion had overcome him in the middle of the day and Kira had fallen asleep with his head nestled in the pages of a book on herbal medicines so he was off guard despite having become more jumpy in the last three days.

“Kira-kun!” The large busted woman said close to his ear making the blond jump straight out of his chair, wide awake and regarding the woman with a startled expression and a surprised blurt of apologies in the form of a squawk. “Ya were sound asleep. You doing alright?”

Kira regained a little more of his posture and upon noticing the stares of the other library goers glaring with angry expressions due to his outburst and responded quietly: “Matsumoto-san, what are you doing here?”

She seemed to ponder the question herself as it was unusual for her to be in such a place. “Taichou asked me to go get some books for him during lunch break. Can you believe it? I have to eat too you know…” Kira gave little more than a nod of understanding to her story as he didn’t feel it was worth arguing that the way Rangiku did her job looked more like a perpetual lunch break and so she continued. “But really Kira-kun, you look like you’ve been doing better recently! Hinamori-chan said she saw you smiling on your way to the Vice-captain’s meeting yesterday morning.”

“Ah…is that so?” Kira smiled gently, closing the book by the back cover so the title was hidden before slipping it underneath the other books.

The silence that followed was induced by the moment of reflection and solitude that had passed over Rangiku as if the suggested allusion to Kira’s usual depressive demeanor had reminded her to tread more carefully. When she did speak it was softly and with gaze subverted. “I know it can be hard…sometimes even the smallest thing will remind me of him-”

“Really, Matsumoto-san, I’m fine. Are you sure you’re alright?” He asked hesitantly because he didn’t wish for this conversation to be focused on him lest his carefully but hastily constructed front shatter though he wasn’t interested either in continuing this conversation for much longer for the purpose of using the most of his free time for his research.

As if the conversation or Kira’s question hadn’t even been heard or she had no intention of addressing she brightened again with the same carefree grin. “Ya know, we haven’t gone out drinking in a long time. What do ya say to tonight? I’ve got to drop these off to Hitsugaya-taichou but how about we meet outside the Tenth about an hour before dusk? I’ve got a new bar I’ve been dying to show ya!”

Under his current circumstances he didn’t want to. He had plans to finish his work early today so he could freely sneak off and go to Fourth Division and ask Unohana-taichou for permission to pick some of the remedial herbs that were grown there and then it was off to mix them before returning to his house by late evening. Kira knew how difficult it was to argue with the older woman when there was drinking to be had, not to mention expressing his plans to her might cast suspicion on his sudden interest in all things medicine again. “I’d love to, Matsumoto-san, but I have a lot of work to do today-”

“Well that’s why I said after work! Come’on Kira-kun…ya look like you could use a drink.” She said with a wink and a playful slap to his shoulder. Kira gave a whithered smile of defeat and that was all the consent she needed. With plans made she said her goodbyes and headed off leaving Kira to try to figure out how to fit in his plans for the entire latter half of the day into three hours.

0000

He’d had to completely forgo the trip to the Fourth Division and resign it to tomorrow which put him in a bit of a poor mood as Kira headed over to the Tenth Division as the sky was beginning to change color at the edges. The thought had momentarily passed his mind to ditch altogether but such an act was unlike him and would cast even more unnecessary suspicion than if he had declined earlier on his whereabouts which was the last thing he needed.

Once upon a time he had deemed Rangiku one of his closest friends and confidants. Whether Kira had distanced himself from her or vice versa was not entirely clear nor important but there was an uncomfortable space between them in the form of a sly smile. The resulting hole drove a spike into already fracturing vague explanations and motives shared between them. As they drank that night Kira tried hard to count not just drinks but hours to make sure he did not over shoot his usual time of heading to his childhood home but as always Rangiku was in charge of the sake between them and was diligent about refilling Kira’s cup before it reached below half empty which made counting all the harder. Time slipped between his fingertips as easily as the sun disappeared behind the horizon and it wasn’t until the bar was beginning to close that either of them noticed the time that had passed.

“Sorry for keepin’ ya out so late.” Rangiku apologized although it had a sly unapologetic tone due to her drunkenness that reminded Kira faintly of the woman’s childhood friend.

“It’s fine Matsumoto-san,” He lied as he tried to extricate himself from the other’s grip on his shoulder to steady herself. “But I really need to hurry; I’m uh, late for something.” He strained to stabilize his speech as well as his vision.

“Wha’ could ya possibly be late for? Yer beauty sleep?” She laughed heartily at her own joke and Kira joined in chuckling in lieu of answering the question.

“I’m sorry Matsumoto-san, I hate to leave you, but I need to get going.” He said, trying to shake the steady buzz and lethargy in his body from the alcohol. “We should do this again some time soon.” He said politely but after a moment was headed off ahead of her towards the low number districts in Rukongai.

“Oh…okay.” She said surprised that Kira had so abruptly left. It wasn’t like him even if fretting over time was. She would have thought little of it if it weren’t for how in the distance Kira was checking over his shoulder before at the end of the block using shunpo to disappear from her sight. It wasn’t particularly uncharacteristic of Kira in her opinion to be a little flighty at best but she couldn’t escape that it felt somehow strange.

0000

Kira was rushing through the old streets, abandoned at this hour but not nearly as careful to check each corner with the sensory touch of reiatsu to make sure the area was truly abandoned as it had been and always was so he thought little of it. He entered the old house, not checking the barriers as he had just replaced all of them yesterday to find Gin sitting on the cold floor outside the room Kira had prepared for him, staring at the moon through a high placed slatted window.

“Yer real late, Izuru. Thought maybe ya’d lost in’trest in me.” He teased, standing slowly with the support of the wall. Although his captain’s movements were still not as graceful as they had once been due to unused muscles and still re-growing tissue it was a terrible relief to have the man stand tall as ever before him, tireless grin just so as it always had and would be.

“Gin, I told you: you shouldn’t leave that room, the reiatsu barriers only work in that room and you’re still too weak to be moving around so much on your-”

Kira’s sentence was stopped short by a hand on his shoulder using him to support his weight while the other hand stroked the blond’s cheek. “Maa, Izuru’s sure gotten bossy since I woke up. Always using just my first name too…ya really have changed, huh?” He complained although the amusement was clear in his voice.

It felt like a slap to the face to Kira and instantly he was reverting to the way things had always been in what Gin had taken to calling ‘the old days’. “I…I’m sorry, Taichou.” He apologized.

Gin half frowned in puzzlement as that term didn’t sit quite right either. “Ya always take me so seriously, Izuru. Don’ worry. I’ll be good n’ stay in my little room as long as ya’ll come with me~” He teased, a wider smile playing on one edge of his mouth into a deeper smirk.

“Let me just make you some tea first.” Kira said but he did help Gin back into his room before leaving him for a moment to prepare the herbal tea that was more relaxing as there were no fresh picked herbs from Unohana’s garden to add restorative value. He brought a pot of tea smelling predominantly of chamomile and lemon shutting the door to the room behind him.

Dutifully kneeling beside his captain’s mat he poured him a cup of the warm tea and waited a few moments while he drank some of the tea. “Um...would you mind taking that off? When you’re ready…” He asked chewing his bottom lip a little at the request, motioning to the kimono portion of Gin’s robes.

“Ahh, but Izuru sure is forward tonight. Ya want me naked already?” He asked with a wide grin even as he was one handedly undoing his sash to loosen the robes, pushing the fabric effortlessly from his shoulders.

Kira blushed furiously as time away from the other had caused him to regress into the prudish self he had always been but had been suppressed by Gin’s disapproval and lack of respect for such tendencies in their life together in the past. “For healing! It’s easier to do if it’s skin to skin.” Kira yelped before remembering himself and the place and lowering his voice. “I just need to look at the wounds again and make sure everything is healing well.” His tone was that of a healer once he had calmed down and if Kira was completely honest with himself he had really thought very little of his lover in such sexual ways as he was accustomed to if only because the professionalism of healing Gin was blocking off that portion of his thoughts for the time being. In the wake of all that happened, it was equally hard to look at the fresh deep scars that etched pale hard skin and do little more than evaluate with the stale expression of a job to do despite Gin’s attempts to flash Kira looks around the rim of his tea.

“Ya really are no fun anymore, Izuru.” He said as the low hum of kidoh added white noise to their conversation. Kira ignored the comment as he was focusing on the least severe wound although still large in its own right originating in Gin’s left shoulder in the form of a deep gash cutting a diagonal line across Gin’s entire chest. He had told Kira once the whole accord of how it had happened blow by blow and that had been more than enough to make him at least a little grateful he hadn’t been there to see it. With each passing session Kira felt that he was replenishing less and less of Gin’s reiatsu and the thought did wonders to lighten his mood at least a shade and bring his lover back a little closer to the person he’d once known so well. As Kira moved to checking the deceptively small stab in Gin’s lower abdomen he tried not to contemplate its matching mark on Gin’s back as it caused a small shiver to run down his spine.

Or maybe that was just from Gin experimentally reaching out with his own reiatsu through the scar Kira was focusing his attention on to tickle at the nerve endings in Kira’s body and make the hairs on his neck stand on edge.

“Gin, if you do that I can’t get a proper rea-”

The sound of wood sliding on wood made Kira’s focus instantly snap to the door with a start, hands leaving Gin’s chest to the sword at his side he was now thankful he had forgotten to leave at the door.

Rangiku stood in the door as wide eyed as the blond who stared back at her. Only a heartbeat passed but in that instant Kira’s thoughts ran so fast he could barely see flashes of the hours turned into weeks tumbling backwards through time he’d spent in this room, blood across broken cement and twisted metal, a mere glance felt through rings of fire and a smile hiding just behind its heat, a pillar of light ascending into the sky and taking all of his sanity with it.

Being the only one capable of speech in that moment Gin began, “Rangiku-chan, I-”

But she was gone from the door frame like they had both dreamed her and Kira was on his feet in seconds right behind the apparition. She wasn’t as fast as he was in the dark, eerie, unfamiliar house and although Kira was gaining on her fast she was knocking over chairs or whatever objects were nearby enough to upset in an effort to delay him. With a leap over a toppled chair Kira used the momentum to crash into her pushing her into a wall and pinning her with the weight of his lunge with surprisingly strong hands on her forearms.

“Let go of me Kira!!” She screamed eyes screwed shut in the raw emotion overwhelming her from Kira’s proximity taking up all her vision. Lacking another hand to silence her Kira increased the pressure of his grip to shock her into silence.

In the moments that passed Kira could hear his heartbeat in his head as clearly as the mistakes he’d made that had led to this. He hadn’t hid his reiatsu on the way here, hadn’t doubled back his path, hadn’t checked the area for surrounding reiatsu, and should have headed back to Seireitei with her before coming back in this direction to give the illusion of heading home. No matter what he could think of he had jeopardized all he had ever wanted or worked for in a momentary lapse of judgment and caution and now he stood to lose everything including the friend in the woman glaring at him struggling against him to reach the hilt of the sword at her side.

His options were limited to say the least but he chose reason first as it was his strongest weapon. “Matsumoto-san, you can’t tell anyone.” He chose the words evenly and carefully as he knew full well he could no more silence her for good than keep her trapped here for very much longer.

“But he isn’t a trai-”

“Yes he is.” Kira cut her off. “He is in their eyes and he always will be. The Central 46 don’t like reopening already perfectly wrapped packages. You know Soul Society as well as I do.” It was precisely the thing Kira had been avoiding facing and it sounded so much more final to hear the words fall from his own mouth than it had conceptualized only in his mind. This plan had no future. It was uncharacteristic of Kira to act without thinking but he had been living in a lapse of character and proper temperance in the last few weeks acting long before he had a well thought out plan on more sheer will than cold hard reality and it was this same reality in the form of his own words now that stabbed him deep and causing his grip was loosening on the older woman without him realizing.

She broke away in a moment and was through the door before he could even gain the wherewithal to chase after her. He could chase her down probably before she reached anyone with real authority but what good would it do when there was no holding her tongue indefinitely. The end was upon him but he’d yet to work out the details of the middle let alone plan for a worst case scenario. He closed the front door lest the open doorway entice anymore visitors before returning to Gin’s room.

He was dressed again and looked up at Kira upon him entering. “Ran-chan leave?”

“We need to get going.” Kira answered in lieu of answering the actual question with instead a more telling statement.

“Where we going?”

“I have no idea.” Kira answered truthfully and while his voice lacked panic it was faint in his hopelessness as there seemed nowhere in Soul Society that was beyond Seireitei’s reach. The Human World was out of the question as that would take far too long to properly prepare and most likely only temporary at best of staving off a chase is Soul Society was feeling particularly determined. The thought that maybe Gin knew how to get into Hueco Mundo still passed through his mind but thoughts of white sand and black sky with barren wasteland as far as could be seen was not any more of a comforting thought than the bleakness creeping into his heart.

“Think I know a place, but it’s real far away.” Gin said regarding Kira who was pacing about as if trying to pack things although there was very little that was needed to be brought with them. “Ya won’t like it much either. It's a far cry from anything like this.” Gin gestured to the room in its warmth and demure wealth despite decades of disuse.

There was a glimmer of understanding in Kira’s expression as Gin had spoken of his beginnings little before but Kira knew of them merely from the snide but reflective tone in the other’s voice. “But wouldn’t they find it? Is it even still there?” Kira asked.

“Nobody’d dare go out that way for anything, Izuru. And o’course it’s still there. There was never anything out there to begin with.” He smirked widely and even Kira cracked a small smile.

Their escape, if you could call it that, was an endurance test of bursts of shunpo interrupted between hiding behind old store fronts and in patches of forest for rest and the readjustment of barriers. As it was nearing dawn they were resting on the far end of a large forest they had been passing through that looked upon a vast open expanse of plain that in the fading darkness giving way to the rising sun looked to Kira like the edge of the world. Although he could tell from his constant scanning of reiatsu they were very much alone and any pursuers were long behind Kira was anxious because the intervals between their runs was getting longer as it took progressively more time for Gin to regain his energy and breath to begin moving again. For perhaps the fifth time since they had sat down on the edge of this forest Kira turned to the man sitting beside him and checked his vitals for anything he might have missed that would show a drop in stability.

“Ya sure are jumpy, Izuru. Don’tcha worry ‘bout me so much.” Gin said standing up from his stump and stretching from side to side as if after a good workout.

They had long ago passed any place Kira knew and staring out across the barren landscape it felt like they couldn’t possibly be anywhere close to their destination as there were no signs of life anywhere in the distance. “Are you sure? It must be far still, can you make it?”

Gin loosed a truly mirthful chuckle and the sound of it stirred the blood in Kira’s veins. “We’re getting there. But ya gotta let me lead alright? Ya don’t know the way anymore do ya?” Gin asked although it was obvious from the way Kira stared out over the landscape that he didn’t. Gin leaned gracefully on a cane Kira had found for him in his house to facilitate his captain’s walking. He wore a dark blue yukata with subtle steel grey geometric patterns on it that had once belonged to Kira’s father as it seemed to the blond most prudent to dispose of their shinigami robes as they would not be necessary where they were going and wearing them might draw unnecessary attention when passing through populated areas. Kira had taken one of his own old ones from his younger days in a pale lilac with patterning on the hem like the foliage of a spring field. Gin felt like even more of a ghost dressed in the festival clothes of his long passed stern but endlessly compassionate and dutiful father. Somehow it made it all the harder for Kira to disagree with his captain’s encouraging as if clothes alone could conjure the past.

Dawn gave way to morning as they passed through the desolate plain. Kira was surprised to find outcroppings of shacks and dusty, dried out towns that blended in with the landscape of short spindly grasses. Kira wanted to ask if these places had names but he questioned whether the people even had names and the silence in the air forced his own questions into repression. From the last small village they passed Kira was about to attempt once again to ask where they were when in the distance there was a single wooden shed standing alone among tall, dried grass blowing in the light breeze. Suddenly Gin who was a few steps in front of him took off into shunpo again and Kira was forced to follow until they came to an abrupt stop outside the house.

“Here?” Kira asked although the answer was obvious.

“Told ya it wasn’t much.” Gin offered as an apology and Kira was surprised to see the other drawing his sword tucked into the tie of his yukata and kick the door open, sword close to his body in defense and preparation for ambush but the room was just as deserted as the surrounding land. Kira entered after Gin who had now sheathed his sword and was wandering about the square space barely bigger than Kira’s room had been in the academy clearing out spider webs and any other unwanted life forms in the space. Other than small it was completely barren; without a mat for a bed, no cooking utensils other than a hole in the wood floor reinforced with stone for cooking. However there was nothing for cooking with nor any place as far as Kira could see out the window for getting firewood let alone viable food.

Although Gin seemed to be happy moving about around Kira the blond stood there in a state of worry not sure how to remake their life in a place that seemed to foster none other than its newest visitor and returnee. “How are we supposed to eat?” He asked. Gin turned in mid stride, closing the door which had blown open by placing his weight on it and then a heavy shove tightly into place.

“Most people don’t really eat around here. Got real low spiritual energy so they don’t need to. Don’t live too long neither.” Gin explained though the answer did little to comfort Kira.

“Then how are we supposed to live here?”

“Never said anything ‘bout living here, Izuru.” Gin explained shoving off of the door to stride over to the blond. He seemed to have regained some of his previous grace as if the exercise had shocked it back into him. “Just layin’ low for a while, catchin’ up on things and all.”

Kira frowned a little but it softened when longer fingers gripped his hips. “Ca-catching up?” Kira repeated.

Gin’s own frown mirrored the other’s but turned into a half turned smirk as he nuzzled the soft cotton covering Kira’s shoulder. “Don’ tell me bein’ away fer so long has made ya forget, Izuru.”

Lips devoured his own before Kira could voice that no, he hadn’t forgotten. The feelings had never gone away just been buried under hurt, then replaced by despair and longing to be healed slowly by caring and concern into a understanding that maybe the past was completely past. But when his lover’s tongue teased gently at his lips it pulled past rocketing into present and the force of it made Kira’s head spin dizzily with rapid thoughts as over a year of solitude came crashing down upon itself in the form of Gin claiming his mouth in the same way he always had if not with a little more desperation and impatience than it had contained before. He wanted to touch everywhere at once and so his hands lay ineffectually at his sides unsure of where to even begin. In contrast Gin’s hands wouldn’t stop moving, pulling, fisting in Kira’s clothing and loosening them to expose soft, long untouched flesh all while continuing the assault on Kira’s lips that fell short of its usual intricacy of tongues and gliding lips in its haste and need.

Gin cared little about the execution of the kiss when Kira’s clothes pooled gently around him on the ground. Kira shivered slightly from the cold; or was it nerves? Either way Gin pulled the blond closer to him and finally Kira was urged into participation, his hands touching gingerly down Gin’s clothed chest, even still he was conscious of the fresh scars hidden beneath soft cotton, hands coming to fiddle with Gin’s belt and untie the knots at his waist.

With his own clothes shed Gin pulled Kira against him for another kiss not ashamed of his own erection already straining, pressed against Kira’s abdomen nor the heat from the other’s sex against his hip. Kira was moaning quietly into their kiss as Gin slowly rocked his hips against the other. With great reluctance he pulled away from Kira’s kiss swollen lips to lay out his yukata on the floor for the blond’s comfort and then with gentle pressure on Kira’s shoulders pushed him to the floor.

Kira stayed that way for a moment, kneeling in front of Gin and although it was tempting to the older man to take Kira up on the offer given the way the blond was staring at his rigid sex near his face he needed Kira in a much more absolute way and so he joined the other on the spread out cloth, urging him slowly onto his back with searing kisses and nips to the blond’s neck and shoulders.

Kira’s legs fell open of their own accord as freely as he let sounds loose from his lips as Gin teased in a flurry of hot lips that was although disorganized was making him thrash lightly below the other. Gin’s hand wrapped around Kira’s sex stroking in long movements from base to tip and Kira’s eyes flew open with a gasp to see Gin presenting two fingers to his mouth in silent suggestion. He took the fingers into his mouth but hesitantly met the other’s gaze as Gin was straddling his hips, stroking him slowly with little pressure and just staring. It was rare for Gin to keep his gaze anywhere for very long but he openly stared at Kira’s face as if time had made him forget what he had once known so well. Kira wondered if maybe he really was different now.

Gin withdrew his fingers from Kira’s mouth and they disappeared from his vision to reappear as a firm push of a single digit against his entrance. Kira groaned as gently but in one smooth push that finger penetrated him waiting just a beat before beginning to move. Kira hadn’t realized he had been moaning rhythmically Gin’s name or spreading his legs wider until the other was leaning over him, a drip of precum falling on Kira’s abdomen to murmur a register lower than normal in his ear “Didja miss me, Izuru?”

“Gin…” Kira breathed and writhed below his lover as two fingers spread him wide and glanced over the spot inside of him that made the heat in his face spread through his body and pooled in his already throbbing groin.

The fingers were plucked from Kira’s entrance swiftly when Gin felt it was sufficient enough as his patience was growing thin very quickly. It felt like their first time all over again and Gin stroked himself lightly as he repositioned Kira’s hips slightly.

“Wait.” Kira said unexpectedly and even he himself was surprised by his sudden interruption. Gin looked at him quizzically, an expression of actual confusion coloring his usual smile into a slight frown. “We shouldn’t do it…not like this. You could hurt yourself.”

Gin nearly laughed and the hand that wasn’t stroking his sex caressed his own chest lightly over scars. “I think I can handle it, Izuru.” He teased before his hand dropped from his own chest to Kira’s hard sex pressed firmly against his own abdomen. He used two fingers to massage the hard vein up the length of Kira’s sex and the other shivered heavily which turned into a groan as Gin thumbed the tip.

“But you-aah…you shouldn’t be so active. You-oooh you should take it e-easy….” Gin was making it very hard on the blond to even think let alone speak and he moaned when finally that hand wrapped around him and stroked at the same pace as the hand on his own sex.

Gin grinned widely and it was the lascivious undertone at the edges of his grin that frightened Kira slightly. “Ya shoulda just said ya wanted to be on top, Izuru. It ain’t that hard to say is it?” Gin teased and he wished he’d thought of the idea decades ago as his hands moved to pull Kira up to sitting.

“N-no that’s not what I meant I-” Kira’s words stopped dead in his throat as Gin had taken his place in the middle of the laid out clothes, legs spread lightly in invitation, leaning up on his elbows to grin at him through slanted eyes.

“Comeon, Izuru, don’ be shy.” He lilted and with a hand was guiding the other to straddle his hips, creamy thighs posed wide around a physically larger body. He snaked his hand into the space created between his hips and Kira’s raised bottom taking firm hold of his sex to align it with the pert muscle of Kira’s entrance. “Ya can take it at whatever speed ya want this way so ya won’t hurt me.” He teased but with a small nudge of his hips and a firm hand pulling down on Kira’s hip he pushed the blunt tip lightly against his entrance making Kira groan softly. “So come on.” He added and although he continued to hold his erection in place to make it easier on Kira he looked to the blond to begin moving.

Although it was aching to move in this position on Kira’s thighs he slowly impaled himself onto Gin’s hard sex, one hand steadied on Gin’s abdomen and the other reaching behind him to guide his lover’s sex into him he let loose a low whimper as the head slipped past the tight ring of muscle. The rest slipped easily into him with a few ginger cants of hips until he was sitting fully on top of Gin, the smooth skin of his bottom nestled against bony hips and wiry hair. He panted barely audibly through the penetration resting briefly to gain the energy to begin to move and savoring the strangely cathartic feel of being joined this way again.

Gin would not have minded if Kira stayed in that position if it were not for the need pounding from his sex at the tight heat encircling him which demanded stimulation. The view was enough to send electric pulses through his body of Kira perched steadily above him, impaled to the very root and trembling from the fullness. His sex was hard against his stomach and beading drops of precome and while Gin wanted to reach out and touch it he needed both hands to support his weight on his elbows to see properly and therefore was reserved to just watching Kira as he struggled to regain his breath.

When the blond did move it was in unsteady thrusts and rolls of his hips as he struggled to find the best purchase in this position. It was entirely new to him and a motion not native to his body and so after a few failed attempts to establish a rhythm he leaned forward some, over Gin to rest a hand on the ground next to his side allowing him more range to move his hips up and down against Gin’s. The thrusts were shallow and unbalanced at first but quickly Kira was growing more practiced and the depth increased as well as the pace. Gin groaned and thrust up as Kira slammed his hips down especially hard onto his cock forcing it as deep as it could go into him and Kira was arching in response to the angle which brushed roughly against his prostate forcing a deep moan from his throat and he stayed that way thrusting straight up and down on Gin’s sex, head rolled back slightly at an odd angle as his hips came down again and again into Gin’s hips rolling up to meet him.

“Hah, Izuru…yeah-just, uhn like that.” Gin groaned between deep breaths as he could feel the desperate itch inside of him being to swell and it became difficult to keep his eyes open enough to see and focused. “Izuru, faster. Touch yourself.” He commanded as his eyes cracked open to search Kira’s face lost in waves of pleasure coming in the smooth roll of hips and harsh breathing.

Despite the blush that covered the bridge of his nose and cheeks due more to exertion than embarrassment Kira shakily wrapped a hand around his own straining sex and pumped in time with his growing more erratic thrusting. He was losing his concentration to a flood of emotions and sensation and the shaking of his abused thighs was further throwing of his ability to maintain a steady rhythm. But Gin was aiding him even if unconsciously in the increasingly fast pace of his hips as he used his leverage to thrust up into Kira. It was sudden and felt like it had been building in him for months not just these hasty moments in the small shack but when Kira came it was with a strangled cry coupled with arching deeply onto Gin’s cock, head falling back to expose the pale column if his neck as pleasure spilled over him in huge waves and tensed every muscle in his body in intense aftershocks.

The image of Kira above him losing himself to such unbridled ecstasy would have been enough to make him come but the pulsing tightness around him had Gin suddenly sitting up and pulling Kira’s hips down onto him as he came hard and deep within the blond with shuddering groans in wave after wave of overpowering pleasure. The satisfaction ran marrow deep beyond just the dearly missed feel of the blond’s tightness around him or the way he screamed his name. The blond was hovering above him leaning on his haunches as he struggled to regain his breath and energy to move again.  As Kira’s panting was slowing, his eyes slowly reopened without realizing they had been screwed shut and he was literally eye to eye with Gin looking into deep red tinted irises.

It might have been the first time it really felt that he was looking at Gin because he felt naked and bare to the very core of his soul. Gin’s spirit was a mix of his own energy and that native to the man in front of him slowly replacing the temporary reiatsu borrowed from him. Kira wasn’t sure what he saw there or if it was really anything he hadn’t known instinctively before but his vision blurred with the beginning of tears.

“Izuru…” Gin said softly, gathering the other into his arms and urging Kira to lean his weight on him to rest on his chest. The change in angle caused his softening sex to slip wetly out of Kira’s passage making them both groan; Gin at the loss of warmth, and Kira at the loss of fullness. He didn’t move to comfort Kira more than to hold him as he was doing even as his body convulsed slightly not from the cold but with emotion, toying lightly with wisps of blond hair at the other’s neck. It was not out of sadness that Kira cried, he knew, and so he stayed quiet because the same had always been true of him too even if Gin did not show it as clearly as Kira did. He could feel Kira settling more into him as shaky sobs diminished into shivering sighs.

Kira tried to think of how to put his feelings into words. Words were his gift in happier days that he had constructed into poetry for fun and when all words had failed him in the wake of his despair he had thought only of what he would say when he had the chance. But the moment came and passed as had a million different chances in Kira’s life but for perhaps the first time he didn’t feel failure or guilt in that missed opportunity. It had never been an opportunity he needed to say anything because in this moment and the moments that came after, any words that passed between them would not compare to the mirror-imaged feelings that would never need voice to hear their complementing sentiment.

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A/N: I did not set out to write a 13 page story when I got this idea. I’m endlessly pleased with it and will make one more plea for art (and reviews) as they make me a happy happy person. Although it makes me happy to just repair their relationship and give Kira and Gin an ending more fitting of them. Please tell me what you think and I hope this made your day a little better too.