~ Grimmjow ~
"Jeagerjaques." I heard a rumbling voice say from behind me, and I turned in moderate concern for my own well-being to the menacing aura behind me.
"Yes, sir?" I asked Kenpachi.
"C'mere, boy. Kisuke and I need to have a word with you." I glanced to my side, where Ichigo had turned his head to me in confusion. With a sigh, I kissed his lips lightly as I stroked a hand through his hair.
"I'll be back." I assured him and he kept a hand on me until I was too far away.
I followed Kenpachi into a different room, where Kisuke was sitting quietly. He looked up and smiled.
"Grimmjow! Come here, sit down! We have important things to talk about!" the blonde man told me cheerfully and I cautiously sat down on the couch across from them as Kenpachi plopped next to Kisuke, a thick arm around his shoulders.
"A'ight, Jeagerjaques. We're gonna get straight to the point. We were in town a few days ago shoppin' and we saw you in the jewelry shop."
Kisuke's smiled suddenly looked strained and Kenpachi didn't look the happiest with me.
"What were you doing in there? Don't lie."
"And Grimmjow, whatever it was, I'm sure -"
"I was buying a ring, sir. For Ichigo. I was actually going to ask you later today if I could have your permission to marry him." I interrupted before I could lose my courage.
Kisuke's eyes widened, and Kenpachi stared me down, eerily quiet.
"What makes you think you deserve him?"
Kisuke smacked Kenpachi, probably prepared to reprimand him, but I held my ground.
"I probably don't, sir, but I love him. It's been four years, and I want to know it'll be forever. He's the one person I can truly say I've ever loved romantically, and I never want to love anyone else. I'm not sure I could live without him, at this point." I bowed my head and put my hands together. "Please let me propose to your son."
It was quiet for a few minutes, but I didn't dare look up until Kisuke responded.
"Yes. Of course."
Kenpachi began chuckling quietly and Kisuke waved a hand at me.
"Grimmjow, not only do you deserve him, he deserves you. No one loves the way you treat him more than he does, except maybe Kenpachi and I. You'll be a great son-in-law."
With a grin, Kisuke leaned forward with excitement.
"Now! When are you proposing?"
-
I slid onto the couch beside Ichigo, who curled up to me, his legs thrown over my lap. I let him get comfortable as I watched the activity around us.
It'd been three days since I'd spoken to Kisuke and Kenpachi about the proposal and by then, news had spread throughout the large family. Everyone but Ichigo and Yachiru knew that I was going to propose (because Yachiru still couldn't keep secrets for the life of her).
I grinned down at my boyfriend as he traced fingers over my chest.
"You ready? We gotta leave in ten minutes if we're gonna get there on time." I mumbled into his hair, patting his bum from where I'd been holding him close.
Ichigo sucked in a shaky breath.
"I'm not sure I want to go."
I sat up a bit straighter.
"Ichigo, we've talked about this..."
"Grimm-" his hand gripped at my shirt, "-what if it doesn't work? What...what if I can't-"
"What if the sky fell, Ichi? What if the sun never came up again? What if the moon got hit by a meteor and got knocked a mile or two closer to Earth and fucked up Earth's whole system? The 'what ifs' don't matter because they'll always be there and we gotta deal with it. Now you said you wanna do this and you got the whole family hyped about it. It's happening."
Ichigo stared at me for a moment.
"You were...surprisingly specific with that."
"Is that all you got out of that?" I asked him with a look of disdain.
That pulled a smile out of him.
"No, I know what you're saying. Sorry." He sat up and patted my thigh with a soft kiss to my cheek. "Alright, let's get going."
He got about three feet away before he tripped.
"You know..." I started as I pulled a disgruntled Ichigo off the floor, trying to keep the grin out of my voice, "you were really cool there for a second-"
"Don't start." he grumbled, his hand clenching in the hem of my shirt.
I laughed and hooked an arm around his waist so that I could lead him to the doorway to put our shoes on.
"We're leaving!" I called into the large house of chaos. "We'll be back in an hour or so with news!"
All movement stopped and everyone in the house shouted, "GOOD LUCK, ICHIGO!"
I swear, he'd never matched the color of his name so well.
~~
The surgeon, Ms. Unohana, had told me the procedure would only take thirty minutes.
But the surgeon had also tried to convince Ichigo out of it.
There were so many things that could go wrong with LASIK eye surgery and she, I, and the rest of Ichigo's family really didn't want him to lose the one eye he sort of had left.
"But it's been so long since I've seen my family's faces clearly. I can't...I can barely remember them. If I'm eligible, I'm doing it."
So, that was that.
And 'that' was what had me pacing the waiting room for thirty long minutes, constantly reassuring the old lady also in there that I was alright and, no, I didn't want candy, but thank you.
"Grimmjow?" I heard a quiet voice call. I whipped around and practically sprinted to Ms. Unohana's side.
She smiled at me and lead me down a hallway, speaking the whole time.
"Ichigo is doing fantastic. He did so well during the procedure and there were no complications. Now, with his level of prescription, he still doesn't have twenty-twenty vision, but he told me that he perfectly alright with wearing glasses still?" She spoke the last sentence as more of a question and I nodded.
"Yeah. He said that as long as he could actually see out of his glasses, he'd be alright." I told her, and she nodded. Instead of leading me into a room where I thought Ichigo would be, she sat me down in her office, where I'd been multiple times before.
"Listen. I usually don't do this for patients, but Ichigo is a special case. There's a lot more at risk with him than my other patients because he got the procedure done on his one good eye. Ichigo is sleeping in a recovery room. Usually, I would send them home with eye shields about fifteen to twenty minutes after the procedure and tell them to sleep for two to four hours so as to let the eye rest. That's what he's doing now, with a sleeping pill at his request, just...not at home. Do you mind?"
Ms. Unohana looked slightly...distressed, if I had to pick a word.
"No ma'am, not so long as his dad and I are allowed in the room with him and he's allowed to come home tonight, I don't mind at all."
She smiled, relieved, and nodded.
"Yes, Mr. Kisuke. He should be arriving soon, right?"
"He's gonna be a few thirty minutes or so late - Yachiru kinda made herself sick on the ninja-bread cookies."
Unohana laughed lightly, "If I may, ninja-bread cookies?"
"Ah, Yachi and Kenpachi said that gingerbread men were too Christmasy and since the rest of the house is already Christmas multiplied by infinity, they decided to make them look like ninjas."
"Oh, that's so cute!" she cooed, and I grinned at seeing the normally reserved woman titter the way she was.
"Anyways, Grimmjow, when I wake Ichigo up in about three hours or so, I'll give him the eye drops I've prescribed to him to take. Of course, he's already heard all of this and I'll tell Kisuke as well, but he needs to avoid rubbing or touching his eyes completely, as well as avoiding reading, computer work, television, and strenuous activity. He's not allowed a shower the first day after, but I'd prefer him not take one for two days just in case. I'll see him tomorrow and the next day, as I've been invited to the gathering - which is the only reason I agreed to do this the day before Christmas Eve - but after that I'll only want to see him once a week or so. His visits will gradually slow down unless he personally comes to me. When he wakes up, I'm going to test his vision and perhaps get a new prescription for his glasses if he's not having any blurriness. You'll be able to pick up the glasses about two hours afterwards."
Ms. Unohana finally finished and smiled softly at me.
"Come. I'll take you to see him."
~~
Some time after Ms. Unohana had let me into Ichigo's room, Kisuke came in, and we quietly chatted for a while that I didn't realize was three and a half hours until Ms. Unohana came back.
"Ichigo should be waking up soon. He told me he doesn't stay asleep long after the pill runs its course." she mumbled as she busied herself with things around the room.
"Yeah, they've never kept him down for long. Anesthesia doesn't work well for him either." Kisuke answered with a smile, and stood to stand beside the cot Ichigo slept on.
Ms. Unohana nodded to him to wake Ichigo up and Kisuke laid a hand on his arm.
"Ichigo?" he whispered, shaking him gently. "C'mon, buddy, wake up for us."
Ichigo mumbled in his sleep as he slowly came to consciousness, blinking slowly. He sat up and Ms. Unohana took the clear eye shields off his face. She had him take the eye drops she'd mentioned and then allowed Kisuke to stand in front of him.
Ichigo just sat and stared at Kisuke, who looked very nervous. After a few moments, tears began leaking from Ichigo's eyes and Ms. Unohana hurried forward and dabbed at his eyes gently, hushing him and telling him to just not rub at it.
"Oh, God...oh, sorry...I just-" a small hiccup interrupted him and Kisuke pulled him into a hug.
"I can see you again." he sobbed, clutching at the blonde man. He pulled away, but didn't let him go, and just stared. Every now and then, he would reach up to touch a feature of Kisuke's face, and every now and then he missed, which made him giggle and reach forward again.
At one point, after he had leaned forward to just hug Kisuke, he sat up.
"Grimmjow."
I stood and went to his side and he practically tackled me.
"You're so much better when I can see you." he whispered, trailing his fingers down my face, "I think I just fell in love again."
I laughed and hugged him tight, before I set him on the ground.
"Why don't we go home? Your family is really excited." I murmured into his hair and Ichigi nodded vigorously.
So, after Ms. Unohana gave Ichigo a pair of sunglasses, as well as his restrictions and perscriptions, we ended up at home, where Ichigo again began bawling as he touched the faces of all his family. He didn't really speak much, except for answering Yachiru's questions, and his family let him. They understood that it was a lot to take in and that this was probably one of the best Christmas presents he could get.
I just hoped that the ring I'd gotten could also be one of those presents.
-
Christmas Day.
I don't think I'd ever been more afraid of anything in my life.
Everyone had opened presents and everything had been cleaned up - boxes stacked, paper recycles, trash thrown out.
All that was left was my one last present, which left the entire family glancing at me (and Kenpachi staring me down).
Before Ichigo could sit back down, I stood and came chest to chest with him. My red-headed boyfriend watched me curiously, a small smile on his lips that had been there since he'd stopped crying.
"Grimm? You okay?"
"Listen, Ichigo...oh, jeez...how do you do this? Do you, like, just attack it?" I asked over Ichigo's shoulder and Kisuke shook his head furiously as Kenpachi nodded quickly.
"No, you have to say why you wanna first!" Kisuke hissed, a hand over his husband's mouth.
When I looked back to my beau, he was frowning.
"Ah, okay. Okay. Ichigo."
He nodded.
"I love you."
He nodded again and quietly told me he loves me too.
"It's been four years since I met you. I love every moment we spend together and I hope that we can have so many more."
Ichigo sucked in a sharp breath at what I suppose was realization.
"We both know I'm no good at this soppy stuff, but I wanna get married and have a kid or three and I really just want you for myself for the rest of our lives." I blurted as I dropped to one knee. I dug in my pocket and grasped at the ring box with sweaty fingers. By now, Ichigo had a hand over his mouth and the other clutched at his chest.
"Ichigo Kurosaki-Urahara-Zaraki, will you marry me?"
"Yes!" Ichigo shouted, and I stood up and swept him into my arms, hugging him tight. His family clapped and whistled and a few even stood up and congratulated us. Kenpachi had an arm around Kisuke and Yachiru was hugging my leg excitedly and as I gazed around at all of the wonderful people that had dragged me into their lives and wormed their way into mine, I realized something.
They weren't just Ichigo's family - they were our family.
Ichigo kissed my cheek and I lightly kissed his lips.
"I love you, Grimmjow Jeagerjaques."
I grinned against his lips. "I love you too, Ichigo Jeagerjaques."
________________
Sorry! I got carried away, but I actually really wanted to see that ending for myself...
I love you guys! Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and stay safe.
Eat good, sleep good, don't fret over your finals grades.
I love you all! Thanks for reading!