Using ROS without gazebo_ros_pkgs ?

Hi, I made a project using Gazebo and plugins to simulate a Robot. ROS is now not even installed on my computer. I wonder if I can use the roscpp librairy to integrate ROS in my project, without using the gazebo_ros_pkgs. The reason why I want to do like this is that I would like to compare my own IK algorithm to common ones available with ROS, and therefore integrate ROS in my Gazebo model_plugin. As you might guess, I don't really know the ROS environnement. Just tell me if my question doesn't make sens! Best.