Bleach Fan Fiction ❯ Black Roses ❯ Gin (The unfading presence) ( Chapter 2 )
Anime/Manga: Bleach Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Psychological | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 03.19.2009 | Updated On: 03.25.2009 | Pages: 2 | Words: 6.0K | Visits: 176 | Status: Completed
Disclaimer:
'Bleach', along with all the characters, places, Zanpakutō, Kido and everything else had been created by Kubo Tite sensei.
The songs quoted in this chapter are "S.O.S (Anything but love)" (Apocalyptica ft. Cristina Scabbia & Mats Leven, from 'Words Collide', 2007) and "The Interview" (A Fire Inside, from 'DecemberUnderground', 2006).
A big Thank you to my beta-reader rukia23, who did a wonderful (and fast!) job.
Black Roses
2 - Gin (The unfading presence)
Skyless_star
Bound to your side and trapped in silence
Just a possession
Is the sex or only violence
That feeds your obsession
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Sitting on the flooring of the office, at the foot of the couch, Rangiku let herself slide down until her head rested on the seat.
Shūhei had tried to convince her to go home, telling her she could have taken a hot bath, drank a cup of tea or do any other thing that managed to relax her, but had decided to give up once she admitted to prefer a place where nobody would have thought of searching for her neither that night nor the following day, that would have been a day off for any Shinigami who had fought.
«I've always thought you two met after joining the Gotei 13.» Shūhei said, facing her.
After seeing her to the office's door, he had offered once again to keep her company and, much to his surprise, she had accepted. He had to be the one to break the ice, talking about neutral and not really important matters, then gradually leading the discussion towards more personal questions such as the reason behind the 69 tattooed on his cheek and how, one hundred years before, he met Kensei. When she started to mention Ichimaru, telling him how he had saved her life, Shūhei had mentally complimented himself.
«No, we'd known each other for about fifteen years before he decided to become a Shinigami, even if I didn't see him for some years after he, on a sunny morning, left me alone.» She grimaced in disgust, looking at the ceiling. «That was one of only two times he said his goodbyes before going away, but the bastard didn't tell me his plan was to never come back. And I, being a fool, was even happy!»
«You couldn't know what was going through his mind.» Shūhei pointed out as he poured some Sake, a motion like any other to keep his hands busy and hold the rage he was feeling toward the ex-Captain at bay.
«I should have at least became suspicious, after all the times I saw him walk away without a word and come back after three, four, five days...» She gazed at the Sake for a while before accepting it.
«He has done the same even after we met again, he kept coming in and out of my life however and whenever he wanted. But what really makes me angry is that he always managed, one way or another, to make me feel guilty for letting him go.» She rolled the Sake in the cup.
«Do you know what he had the nerve to say on the Sōkyoku hill? He said 'Too bad. It would have been nice if my capture lasted a little longer...'. Bastard.» She gulped down the Sake.
«Maybe he cared for you deep down, even though he had a strange way of showing it.» Shūhei offered, wondering why the hell he was defending the man.
«Tch! A strange way... Even Zaraki-Taichō can be affectionate in a more normal way than him.» She extended her hand, waiting for her cup to be filled again.
Rangiku stopped talking and Shūhei silently observed her roll her cup and study its content as if it held the answers to all of life's problems. To him, the discussion was at a stalemate: whether anything stopped there or she decided to open up her heart and disclose up to her last thought to him was, at that point, only up to her. She kept the sad and thoughtful expression for a little while longer, before she finally decided to speak.
«Shūhei...» She hesitated, never taking her eyes off the Sake she kept rocking, «What was your first thought when... When Komamura-Taichō killed Tōsen?»
It wasn't exactly what he was hoping for, but if he wanted her to confide in him, he had to be ready to do the same. «My first thought when Tōsen died...» He repeated, taking some time to bring it back to mind and find the best words to express those emotions.
«...Honestly.» He heard her add.
He took a deep breath, to ignore the pain that topic caused in him. «I suppose it was 'Mission complete', or 'And one down', or... Well, something like that. That's what I thought. But if I have to be totally sincere, in the moment I understood Komamura-Taichō was about to deliver him the death blow my first instinct, even if it lasted only a moment, was to step between them and defend my Captain.» He felt her eyes on him.
«Don't get me wrong, I know he was an enemy and he no longer deserved any loyalty, but I've been his Lieutenant for almost thirty years; some habits die hard.»
«You don't have to explain yourself. Not to me, at least.» She kept staring at the tiny bit of Sake in the cup she was holding, even though she probably already knew everything about it.
They fell silent once again. As much as he wanted to tell her to let out all the things that made her sad, Shūhei couldn't find the courage to say anything; a single misplaced word would destroy the air of confidence they had built with so much effort, so he decided to wait. He observed Rangiku drink the Sake in a single gulp and let the cup slide onto the table once she had ascertained the jug was empty, he followed her eyes as she let herself fall against the couch once again, her legs bent, an hand resting on her abdomen and her face turned to the ceiling as if nothing mattered anymore.
«Shūhei, do you... Do you think Gin did it on purpose?»
Shūhei raised an eyebrow at that question he hadn't seen coming and that he didn't think he had really understood. «You mean 'Desert the Gotei 13 and join for-'»
«Let himself be killed. By me.» Then, again, silence.
«Why do you think he did it on purpose?» He asked in a low voice after considering her words for a while.
«It doesn't make any sense, right?» Rangiku scoffed at herself. «But I can't get over the fact that I, a Lieutenant, after that abomination took away my right side, managed to defeat a Captain that had suffered only minor injuries. This is downright preposterous, Shūhei.»
The seriousness and gravity in her tone absolutely did not suit the sunny and loud Rangiku Matsumoto.
«Maybe his aim wasn't to get himself killed, but simply not to hurt you.»
«A little too hypocritical of him trying to protect me after I almost died, don't you think?»
«Who knows, maybe after he saw you hurt he repented of what he had done.» If someone were to tell him, even just half an hour before, that he'd try to redeem Ichimaru Gin in her eyes no less than three times in a few minutes, he'd have considered him crazy.
«Gin never repented of anything in his whole life.» She thought back to the years in the Rokungai and remembered certain events which, at the time, she had thought nothing of -they had to survive after all- but that now she could see in a different light.
Shūhei stared at her for a moment before speaking, in the most neutral tone he could muster. «But then, what could have been his reason to let himself be kil- ...Not to defend himself?» He tried to avoid words that could hurt her, but he noticed from her expression that it was the question itself that made her feel uneasy. He wanted to apologize and tell her she didn't have to answer, but thought that if that was the sore point, it was there that he had to insist.
Rangiku detached her self from the couch, carefully avoiding looking at Shūhei. She looked like she was searching for a reason, or maybe just a better way to say the idea she had had from the beginning.
«If you were in a hopeless situation and had already accepted your imminent death, by whose hand would you prefer to die?»
'Follow her reasoning, follow her reasoning, follow her reasoning... Whatever it may be.' He had to repeat it more than once to convince himself to answer. «I don't know... I think I would have to know my enemies very well to be able to chose.»
«What if between your enemies there was also the woman you've treated as if she was your property for more than a century?» Her voice was dripping hatred.
Shūhei admitted to himself that she had managed to catch him unprepared asking such a question. What to say not to make Ichimaru look like a monster? At that point, was it really what she wanted? While in a secluded corner of his mind his own territorial instinct was jumping for joy because there was no longer the need to praise his rival, the part of him endowed with reason searched for the most diplomatic answer, something that wouldn't sound like a way to debase the other man nor like an attempt to appear like Prince Charming. Easier said than done.
«I'll tell you what you'd do: you'd do anything to be killed by her and make her feel guilty for the rest of her life!» She had gradually raised her voice, but nonetheless her voice never reached the point of screaming. She brought her knees to her chest in the effort to block out the world, in her eyes the tears she refused to let fall.
«Rangiku-san...» Shūhei put an hand on her shoulder, but it looked like she didn't notice. Maybe it would have been better to leave the task of hearing out a heartbroken woman to another woman, he thought, but by then he could no longer do it.
«I want to go and tell him what I think. Tell him I'm done with him, that I won't be here to wait for him when he comes back, that if he really wants to get killed, he'll have to do it by himself. I want to tell him I can't stand his habit of going away without a single word, of treating me like a doll, but I can't because...» She sniffed, trying to hold back the tears. «Because he is... Is...» Her voice grew weaker and weaker, unwilling to utter those words.
Shūhei gently stroked her back in a circular motion, but instead of soothing her, the gesture made her jump to her feet.
«Sorry. It's nothing, don't mind it.» She bent down to gather the jug of Sake from the table, pointedly avoiding looking at him. «I'm going to fill this. I'll be back in a moment.» Her tone was forcefully happy, but it wasn't difficult for him to understand it was just a matter of seconds before she'd have a nervous breakdown.
He caught her by the wrist before she could get away as he stood up. He didn't know what to do or what to say, he only knew that behind those blue eyes looking at him and pleading for him to let her go, there was a river of tears fighting to break its banks and a wonderful woman that never in a million year should have suffered so badly. Acting purely on instinct, Shūhei pulled her to him and held her tight against his chest.
She was motionless, probably not ready for that forced contact, but he refused to loosen his grip. What would he get from doing it? She'd run away to cry alone and he'd stay there, like an idiot, feeling sorry for her. He held her closer and let his cheek rest against her head.
«You don't need the fake smile here, Rangiku-san. Let go, let out everything that makes you feel down.» He whispered in her hear.
Shūhei started to stroke her back and she hid her face against his shoulder as the sobs began to shake her body. One of his hands, on its own accord, moved to the back of her head caressing her hair and Rangiku let go of the jug to bring her hands on his hips, firmly gripping the fabric of his Kimono. Shūhei kept whispering words that didn't matter as much as the tone he was using to say them and the sobs, soon, made room to a heartfelt weeping.
Rangiku let the tears fall, no longer trying to stop them, without worrying that they were beginning to dampen his shoulder. Shūhei heard her say disjointed sentences between her sobs, phrases chasing and overlapping one another, hardly managing to reach his ears.
«It's my fault, I was the one to... I killed Gin...» Shūhei tentatively told her she didn't need to feel guilty, she had had no choice, but she didn't hear him or choose to ignore his words.
«Everyone will think he was only a traitor... even before nobody liked him...» She pushed herself tighter against him. «But he could also be a nice guy... big-hearted...»
Shūhei lied, telling her he thought the same thing; maybe she wasn't listening, but he was willing to do anything that had even the slightest chance to make things better.
«I feel his blood on my hands... Hot... sticky... I feel it on myself...» As she said it she was clenching and unclenching her fists around Shūhei's Kimono, desperately clinging to the feeling of the silk against her fingers. «It doesn't go away, Shūhei. It doesn't go.» She began crying a little harder, repeating the same words over and over.
At least, Shūhei thought, if she's calling my name it means she hasn't lost her grip on reality.
«He's dead... This time he won't come back to me.» She said, shaking her head. «It isn't a cruel joke, I saw him dieing. I saw him coughing blood, I saw... I... felt him sliding down my Zanpakutō... I felt his bones against my blade and... and then he went limp against me... and he wasn't breaking... and...» She continued to torment herself with the same words, reliving again and again those few moments that had turned her life upside down.
Shūhei kept holding her tightly and gently rocking her as if she was a child, conscious there was nothing he could do to make her feel better aside from letting her get it out of her system. One thing was clear from her words: she was still in love with Ichimaru, in spite of the way he treated her, despite all the things she was saying she hated about him and despite the fact she had fought against him and she had won.
And the more the pain she was in and the reason that caused it became clear, the more Shūhei was compelled to realize that the woman weeping in his arms, the one whose body was shaken by continual sobs that made her look more and more frail and on the verge of crumbling, that woman had instead a courage and a loyalty that no other member of the Gotei 13 would ever have been able to find. Even Captains Kenpachi and Soifon, he thought, wouldn't be able to point their sword at the person who meant the most to them.
«You were brave, Ran.» He whispered, too engrossed in the revelation he just had to notice he had used a pet name he kept strictly confined inside his fantasies. «More than anyone would have thought possible.»
Maybe without thinking, maybe hoping she wouldn't understand the real meaning of the gesture or perhaps, deep down, hoping she would understand it, Shūhei gently placed a kiss on her head. A woman like her didn't deserve to suffer because of a man like Ichimaru, no man in the world should ever make her suffer. Bringing a sad expression onto her beautiful visage should be considered a crime.
«Stop crying now, Ichimaru doesn't deserve your sadness.» Shūhei kissed her again and closed his eyes, burying his face in her hair, against her neck. He tightened his hold on her, not knowing what else to do to chase the reason for her suffering out of her heart.
«That man has never deserved you, Ran.»
And that was true, Rangiku thought, despite the fact that for a multitude of reasons she had never been able to get away from him. Ever since they had first met, he had always done anything in his power to keep her close to him and avoid letting others take his place and, since the moment he had deserted, she had begun to feel the need to state her own independence where she had never been able to do it: her love life.
The pent up stress from the past few months and from that long battle day, the will to break with everything that used to make her suffer, the impossibility to build a relationship in the space of a few minutes, the strong and comforting presence of Shūhei, the words he had whispered to her, those little kisses, the fact he had called her with the same pet name Gin used during their intimacy, all those things triggered a reaction from her that none of them could have predicted.
A quick move, not even the time to notice one of the hands on his hips was gone, and Shūhei felt her hand pressing against his genitals.
He opened his eyes wide and every other movement of his immediately stopped, from the soothing gestures of his hands to the light rocking, up to his breath.
«Ra-Rangiku... San?!» He loosened his hold on her and detached his face from her neck, but he lacked the courage to move away and risk seeing her face.
She didn't answer, but let her hand slide upward until her palm was caressing his virility.
Shūhei swallowed noisily, hopelessly trying to ignore what she was doing before his body would react. Conscious it wouldn't be enough, he squeezed that hand with his, stopping it.
«Rangiku-san?» He repeated.
«To hell with everything, Shūhei. To hell with Gin, to hell with being sad because of him, to hell with being fussy with other men.» She let the hand that was still free slide toward the buttocks of the man in front of him.
«Make love to me, Shū.» She whispered that pet name in an enticing voice, tickling his ear with her breath.
This time it wasn't just his breathing to go away, this time Shūhei would have been ready to swear his heart had stopped, had it not been for the wave of heat he felt on his cheeks, his ears and more or less every inch of his body.
«Ra-Ran, stop. I could really do it.» He pleaded and warned her at the same time.
It wasn't right to do it this way, just because she was feeling down. It wasn't how he had imagined, for almost forty years, their first time together. She deserved more. He had to get away from her before his body's desire could prevail on his reason, or else he'd end up doing something she could hate him for. But it seemed like not a single muscle of his body was willing to cooperate with his brain's idea of going away.
«Do it.» She grazed his sex with her fingertips, that she had managed to move despite his hand's grip.
Shūhei inhaled deeply in the pointless effort of maintaining his self-control, but he was already feeling an erection coming to life. It's not every day that Rangiku Matsumoto asks you to go to bed with her; he could have thrown her on the couch, screwed her the whole night and passed for an hero because she had been the one who wanted it... No, no, no, I can't do it. Also taking her against the floor wouldn't be that bad... You're thinking with your cock, Shūhei. You must resist. Or on the table, on the desk, against the window...
«I've always thought you had a nice body, Shū.» Big deal, a Lieutenant with an athletic body. But it couldn't hurt to overdo it, as she had learned from a one century long relationship with a man that used to always pretend he wasn't searching for her just to have sex. «And you're big where it counts.» In truth she could compare him only with one person -Gin- and, taking a guess through his clothes, Shūhei wasn't so different from him.
Damn, he thought, the woman knew how to arouse a man. «Stop it.» He said once again, addressing her but also his own body.
Rangiku laid her lips on his neck, letting her teeth brush over it.
Emitting a guttural noise, Shūhei surrendered and let go of Rangiku's hand, that began to go up and down once again in a slow and captivating movement. He held her in his arms in a gesture that was nowhere near friendly or reassuring and pushed his face against her neck, taking in her scent like a vampire feeding off his prey's blood.
«I'll ask it only once, Ran. Are you sure you want to do it?» He asked in a hoarse voice while grazing her neck and jaw with the tip of his nose, waiting for her to say she wanted to proceed before he'd do the same with his lips and tongue.
She said nothing, but answered by unfastening the Obi of his Kimono and letting her hands find their way past the Nagajuban. With one hand's fingers, she outlined the upper part of the Fundoshi, while with the other she moved down to tease his testicles. To Rangiku it was like a small revenge that he had 'bigger balls' than Gin.
Shūhei allowed himself a moan of pleasure and, encouraged by her silent approval, he ventured on the places he had wanted to explore for a very long time. With one hand he took possession of one of her breasts while with the other he felt her backside, pushing her even more against himself, and he began to kiss her neck, moving up to her ear and then following the line of her jaw.
She accepted all of the attention, even though she wasn't really receptive, and reciprocated by inserting her hand in his Fundoshi. She played with the erection confined there for a while, then started to pull the fabric until that piece of flesh, greedy for attention came to light.
She felt Shūhei's hand running over her body toward her Obi, but since it would take him too long to undo it, Rangiku pushed the man onto the couch and raised both sides of her Kimono to straddle him. She tried to convince herself the opportunity to remain at least partially covered had nothing to do with her decision.
He raised his eyes to her face, for the first time since she had begun to cry, and there he found only a determined look and eyes still red from the tears. For a moment, his brain restarted its function and he finally wondered what Rangiku's true motivation was, what she was trying to achieve throwing herself in the arms of the first man happening to be near. He gently brushed one side of her face and caressed her cheek with his thumb.
«Ran, you don't have to do it. There are other wa-» His extreme attempt to behave like a gentleman was cut short by a kiss on his lips born more from need that from passion. There was no passion in what they were doing.
«Please.» She said in a low voice after that kiss, encircling his neck with her arms.
Shūhei accepted what he had probably known since the beginning, but that his pride and his obsession for Rangiku hadn't allowed him to see. Having sex with him wasn't a way to state her emancipation from Ichimaru, it was just a way to fill the void he had left. And had someone else been there in front of her, things wouldn't have gone any differently. In spite of everything, he decided to play along; at that point he could no longer back away.
«If you insist...» He said in a sensual and clearly fake tone. «I won't let anyone say Hisagi Shūhei didn't satisfy a woman.» Seeing the grateful look she was giving him, he knew she had understood the true meaning of his words.
He moved their bodies so that he found himself laying atop of her and, looking at the point where they would join each other to avoid eye contact, he saw she was wearing western underwear, something that many other women did for a matter of comfort; he tried to slide it off of her but she was faster, restricting herself to move the fabric out of the way. Shūhei didn't ask the reason for that gesture, considering the circumstances it was even too easy to guess she wanted to limit the intimacy between them as much as possible, no matter how impossible it seemed.
He allowed himself, though, to run his fingers on her womanhood to verify whether or not she was ready to be penetrated. She definitely wasn't. He started to use his hands to arouse her a little, but she stopped him before his movements could have any effect.
«Don't mind it.» In her tone he could feel indifference and annoyance. He looked at her, for the umpteenth time, astonished by her words.
«Once you enter, it will get wet by itself.» She explained.
Shūhei sighed. That was surely going to be the most surreal intercourse of his whole life; last time he had felt so uncomfortable about something concerning sex had been back in the Rokungai, when he was little more than a brat and had his first erection, that was noticed by every companion of his -including the one that had caused it. Since he couldn't do anything else, he settled on stroking himself with a hand wet with saliva. She looked at him questioningly.
«I don't care what you say, I don't want to hurt you.» He answered. The fact she wanted to throw herself away didn't mean he couldn't be a little gentle. He positioned himself to enter her and asked again if she really wanted to skip foreplay; as he had anticipated, her answer was affirmative.
Keeping his eyes fixed on her to catch any eventual pained expression, Shūhei used two fingers to splay her opening and, with all the delicacy he could muster, he entered her. He started moving back and forth, distinctly noticing her body was reacting as much as to make the exchange smooth. Relieved by the fact he wouldn't hurt her -in the body, at least- he wondered nonetheless whether it was normal for her and Ichimaru to start the sex that way, with no attention for her.
His speculations were short-lived, though, because Rangiku brought her hands behind his back and pulled him toward herself. «Hold me.» She whispered, hiding her face against his shoulder. Shūhei silently complied.
He held her close for the whole time, as he moved inside her and placed small kisses on the side of her head. Luckily the way she was pressed against him prevented him from looking at her face; he thought he didn't deserve it, he feared that doing it he'd find only sadness there and, if that were to happen, he would no longer be able to continue and would end up abandoning her, just like Ichimaru had done.
Trying to ignore the loathing he felt toward himself, he made an effort to finish that ancient ritual he had dreamed of doing with her for so long, but that at the moment held no love, no passion, no desire but only sadness and sorrow. To her it was just a way to find solace in the only way he, at the moment, could offer her: in the guise of an intimacy ending with their genitals, in the guise of bodies holding each other while their minds tried to keep a distance, in the guise of eyes avoiding contact because the one between their souls was so strong it hurt.
They repeated the same rhythmic movement until she smothered her screams against his body. Whether she was screaming for pleasure or for despair, though, wasn't easy to tell.
Shūhei stayed inside of her, waiting to catch his breath, and pushed his head into the couch trying to delay the unavoidable confrontation that would follow as long as he could, even though it probably was going to be just an exchange of glances. He felt he had taken advantage of her, because he had believed, for a moment, she was interested in him, because he hadn't been able to say no, but most of all, because feeling her muscles contract around him had blown his will to contain himself to pieces.
After an undefined interval of time, too long to live and too short for mustering up the courage to stop it, Rangiku felt him sliding out of her body and was silently grateful he had done it quickly, without speaking and without looking at her face. Suddenly the intimate contact between them, the feel of him still inside her, the rubbing of their skins -even though it was only to interrupt the contact- had became too embarrassing to sustain. When he lifted the upper part of his body, she followed the movement, refusing to leave that warm and welcoming hideout that was his shoulder.
«Rangiku-san...» Shūhei whispered, having absolutely no clue on what to do at that point. He was hoping to understand what to do from the things she would have said, but she said nothing and gave no hint of letting him go.
«We should cover ourselves.» He said, hoping it would give both of them a little time.
Though unwilling to let him go, Rangiku nodded and loosened her hold. Both her and Shūhei looked away while he stood up and turned his back on her to redo his clothes.
«Can I turn around?» He asked, once he had made himself decent again.
Rangiku nodded. «Yes.» She said a few seconds later, realizing he couldn't have noticed her gesture.
Still avoiding eye contact, he sat next to her. Even though there were so many things each of them wanted to say -things to apologize for, things to thank for, things they no longer wanted to keep inside- the two of them kept quiet. By then every word seemed out of place. The muffled noise coming from outside and the steady, slow and deafening ticking of the clock were the only sounds to keep them company.
As the minutes passed, their thoughts began to wander away from that room and from what had happened inside it to return on the original reasons that brought them there. And while Shūhei was thinking about putting aside his embarrassment for the sake of the woman he had tried, with little success, to comfort, that same woman thought back to all the things that had occurred and felt new tears staining her face.
They fell fast, fluid, without any sobs or cries to accompany them, because they were no longer due to the feelings of guilt for killing the man she loved or to the resentment she felt toward him for leaving her behind, but only to the sadness for the death of a friend, that kid with the always smiling face whose eyes remained a mystery for many and, most of the times, also for her.
Turning to her to ask if she felt a little better -or to volunteer to take her home, or to apologize for what he had done or, anyway, to say something, anything that could break the ice recently formed- Shūhei saw the tears running down her face without restraint and in that same moment he regretted having indulged her request.
«Rangiku-san... I'm very sorry, I shouldn't have...» He made a gesture vaguely pointing at the couch, «I'm sorry...»
She just looked at him for a moment before she moved closer to him and snuggled up to him, taking possession once again of the shoulder that had come to be so familiar for her. Wondering if she had at least noticed he had spoken, Shūhei held her without a word and began to gently rock her. She cried and enjoyed the luxury of being cuddled until the mental and physical exhaustion took the upper hand, making her fall asleep in that strong and reassuring hug for which she, in that moment of frailty, was immensely grateful.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Today, this small favour I am asking
Hold me, you may drop me tomorrow
For a change, I'll refrain,
From hiding all of me from you
Chapter last edited: February, 28 2009
'Nagajuban' and 'Fundoshi' are respectively the inner robe worn under the Kimono (the white one in the Shinigami's uniform) and the male loin-cloth. I made Rangiku wear western underwear because I couldn't find anywhere informations about traditional Japanese underwear for women (I got this from Wikipedia).
Thanks to everyone who read this chapter and thanks to the ones who will review. Any opinion, even negative, will be greatly appreciated.