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You never expected chaos and destruction to rain down from Menos-rent holes in the sky, did you? Even after serving for hundreds of years in the Gotei-13, and even after having witnessed countless deaths and nameless horrors on scores and scores of battlefields, and even after having hardened your heart to the point of cruelty - you called that sort of thing realism when you were a soldier - in order to combat feelings like guilt and fear and uncertainty, you never expected it.
But then, these past several days had been full of things that Kyōraku Shunsui, Captain of the Eighth Division, had never expected. He’d never expected to receive word that the entirety of the Central-46 had been slain where they sat in their darkened chamber. He’d never expected that the Captain of the Fifth Division, young Sōsuke-kun, with his gentle smile and easy manners, would reveal himself to be a power-hungry villain and a hypnotic author of ruin. He’d never expected that he would take up arms in a life-or-death fight against Yama-jii, and he’d never expected that he would help his best friend hurl an ancient, unsealed shield at an ancient, unsealed monument to execution in hopes of seeing its sturdy beams and unyielding power crumble, and become nothing.
Some things, though, Kyōraku Shunsui had expected. He’d expected the bravery of his Nanao-chan, for one - she will always, always, stand resolutely by Kyōraku’s side, and her rules-and-regulations-bound heart, Kyōraku knows, will always, always be firmly fixed in the right place. He’d expected the fierce determination of the Ryoka boy, for another. The Ryoka boy, if the reports were to be believed, made a habit of fighting boldly and fearlessly when the lives of those he loved were on the line, no matter how great the risk to his own life, and no matter how hopeless his cause seemed.
Kyōraku smiles, wanly, and without humor.
He knows someone else who fights with a determination like that.
Though he is loathe to admit it, some small part of Kyōraku Shunsui had expected to be here, right now, like this, taking step after heavy step along the worn, wooden bridge at Ugendō, bearing his best friend home in the aftermath. He bites back a sigh, and he clings even tighter to the exhausted body that he cradles in his strong arms.
“Nearly there, Jū-chan,” Kyōraku murmurs. “Nearly there…”
His words are soft, and though he speaks them with the intention of providing comfort, Kyōraku can hear how they’re tinged with resignation. Damn, he thinks. Damn this sad, old heart of mine, eh?
Kyōraku grits his teeth. Takes the next step, and then the next. Holds his Jū-chan even closer, and feels the heat from his Jū-chan’s skin bleeding through the layers of his haori and shihakushō. Brushes the edges of his Jū-chan’s reiatsu, usually so calm and steadfast, but right now, frantic and frenetic and directionless; it darts desperately, aimlessly, to and fro, like a small, scared child who has gotten lost, and doesn’t know what to do or where to go.
It hurts Kyōraku, hurts him deeply, to see his friend like this. To see his Jū-chan, always so brave and so full of hope, laid so low by despair. And indeed, it is despair, this twisted thing which has so abruptly settled inside the depths his Jū-chan’s heart. Kyōraku is absolutely certain of this. After all, he reflects bitterly, if any man should know what despair looks like, it’s me.
Still, as difficult as it might be, Kyōraku almost wants to allow Ukitake this rare flash of weakness. You can’t be strong forever, can you? Not even you, Jū-chan. He stares intently at his friend’s ashen face, and that wan, humorless smirk threatens to wrench its way onto his mouth once more. Shit, Jū-chan, he thinks, watching those closed eyelids flicker with the tiny, worried movements which Kyōraku recognizes all too well as the precursors to fever-dreams. If I were like you… if I were like you, I don’t think I’d ever have the heart to be strong…
***
At first, he tries to talk peace. He tries to talk peace, even as the crackling heat of Ryūjin Jakka saps every shred of moisture from the air, and makes the breath inside his dry mouth and his ruined lungs sting, tainted as it is by fire and smoke and ash.
At first, he tries to talk sense. He tries to talk sense - tries to shout sense - tries to shout sense up at the sky, even as Sōsuke-kun consummates his grotesque treaty with the Menos, and ascends, bathed in light like some wannabe savior, rising upwards and far, far away. “No one starts on top of the world,” Sōsuke-kun states smoothly as he sails skywards. “Not you… not me… not even gods…”
His thoughts race; his mouth gapes; his disobedient body stays stuck, stock-still. What do you know about gods, Sōsuke-kun? He feels the strange, silent pulse of eternal stagnation beating hard, even now, even after two thousand years, inside his chest. What could you possibly know? He realizes that he’s beginning to shake, with burning fury and unbridled shock and utter, flat-out misunderstanding. You can’t mean what you say, Sōsuke-kun…! You can’t…! Not you… this cannot be your destiny… He watches, helpless, as Sōsuke-kun’s billowing silhouette gets smaller and smaller, and as his words become harder and harder to hear. This… this cannot be OUR destiny…
At first, he tries to stay standing. He tries to stay standing, even as his limbs quiver with exhaustion and his reiatsu flounders with over-exertion and his eyes, tired and bloodshot, flicker through the cloud-streaked sky, as if they could re-open the Garganta - or, perhaps, somehow reverse time - with their desperate looks.
He stands, swaying, breathing much too quickly, black brow furrowed with worry and beaded with sweat, as he watches the chaos beneath Sōkyoku Hill slowly settle. He must seem uncertain, it occurs to him. He feels overwhelmed, torn - and he’s tired, so tired - and he cannot keep his focus in one place. He looks one moment across the hill to Byakuya-kun - Brave Byakuya-kun, he thinks. He must live - please - please, gods, he MUST - whose shirts have been ripped open by the Fourth Division officers trying their damnedest to stem the bleeding from the wound in his chest. The next moment, he looks to Rukia-chan, his good and loyal and still-breathing subordinate, kneeling dutifully at her brother’s side, her slender, white-clad shoulders bent deeply, in deep relief and deep urgency both. The next moment, he looks to the Ryoka boy, lying, wounded and weak but not broken, beneath the human woman’s watchful gaze and skillful hands -
But always, always, he finds his desperate eyes sliding back to the sky.
I’m going to fall, he recognizes dully. He knows this feeling well. He keeps moving his eyes, but the world follows slowly in his gaze. Images shift in his vision piece by microscopic piece, and soon, he can’t make sense of the people and places and things around him anymore. His knees grow weak; he compensates, tightening the firm muscles in his legs and curling his toes as if his body believes that doing so will allow him to stay upright above the dusty ground. His flesh has grown hot. His skin feels too small. He can hear every thud of his heart distinctly - my broken heart, his wandering mind thinks against his will, my war-torn, betrayal-battered heart. He finds sick humor in the idea, and he almost laughs aloud, but some centuries-honed sense within him remembers that he is still in public, remembers that he must, must, continue to play the part of the strong, hopeful leader, even when he feels himself cracking and crumbling from the inside. His flickering eyes ache, but he doesn’t dare close them - I must stay awake. I must not fall. No - NO - because, if he closes them now, there’s no telling when he’ll open them again.
He cannot say how long he stands in that weak, weary limbo, swaying and staying on his feet through sheer force of will and through the massive power of his reiatsu. I want to go home, he catches himself thinking. I want to go home, and I want to forget all of this, and I want to sleep… I want to sleep… I… I want…
That’s when he feels the hands. The hands - big hands, hard hands, warm hands - settle heavily upon his shoulders. They stay there for a moment, keeping him as steady as they can, and then one runs its way down his back, and slips beneath his arm to wrap protectively around his heaving chest.
That’s when he hears the voice. The voice - a soft voice, a distant murmur that creeps gently into his ear - speaks small words, simple words. “I've got you, Jū-chan,” the voice says. “I've got you… Let go if you need to, Jū-chan... I’ve got you… It’s okay...”
“It’s not okay,” he hears himself say. His own words are faint, and defeat rings in every syllable. “It’s NOT okay,” he repeats, more loudly, more forcefully. It hurts his head to speak so loudly, but he pays his pain no mind, and continues, adamantly, to protest. “It’s not … it’s NOT …”
“Jū-chan…” says the voice -
“It's... not ...”
“Jū-chan... “
“I… Shunsui, I…”
“Jū-chan - !”
“I... can’t...”
That’s when he falls.
***
His Jū-chan is light in his arms - whether it’s because his Jū-chan is so thin, or because Kyōraku has never minded supporting his Jū-chan when he cannot stand on his own two feet, Kyōraku does not know - but even so, Kyōraku still feels a profound sense of relief when, finally, he ducks beneath the doorway that leads to his Jū-chan’s private quarters, and when, gently, he lays his invaluable burden down.
Kyōraku does his best to force a smile. His Jū-chan may not see it - his weary eyes have stayed closed for the time being - but Kyōraku figures that a little good humor might slip its way into his speech, if he tries hard enough.
“...hey,” he says. “We made it, Jūshirō,”
Ukitake, eyes still closed, lies motionless, and says nothing.
Kyōraku’s smile, meager though it already was, begins to fade. “Jūshirō,” he tries again.
Still, Ukitake says nothing.
“Jū-chan…”
Still, nothing.
Kyōraku presses his lips together in a thin, hard line. “Jū-chan,” he says, softly. “Don’t you do this.” His mouth feels tight, and he’s sure that his words sound tense. “Please, Jū-chan… I know you’re awake, so... please… don’t you do this. Okay?”
Tentatively, Kyōraku extends one hand, and moves to cup Ukitake’s smooth cheek in his rough, swordsman’s palm. He feels the fever there, seething beneath his friend’s pale flesh, but he does his resolute best to ignore it; worrying, Kyōraku knows, will help nothing. “Come on, Jū-chan,” he tries again. He keeps his hand there, pressed against his friend’s skin, and, boldly, forcefully, extends a tendril of his reiatsu, urging it towards Ukitake’s. He almost expects his friend’s reiatsu to meet his own head-on with a warm, whole-hearted embrace, like it usually does - when it does not, Kyōraku suspects sadly that it will stay exactly where it is, lolling and listless, limp and weak, glowing only faintly with its trademark spark of life - and so, Kyōraku is shocked when, abruptly, rapidly, his Jū-chan’s reiatsu shrinks away, retreating. Ukitake himself, too, recoils, and Kyōraku doesn’t know whether to feel thrilled that his Jū-chan is exhibiting this sign of movement, or wounded - horribly, grievously wounded - that his Jū-chan is using what little energy he has to twist his body away from Kyōraku’s loving touch.
“...please?” he tries, one more time. His words slip out unconsciously. His voice is only a whisper now. “...please, Jū-chan?”
But Kyōraku knows in his heart that his Jū-chan will not reply. He sighs, deeply and wearily...
...and then, he steels himself.
He will not mourn this change in his friend. This change is - this change must be, he insists - only temporary.
No.
No - he will not mourn.
He will take action - meager action, but action nonetheless - instead.
That, he recognizes, is all that he can do.
Kyōraku rises. He scans the small, square room. He fetches the clean cloths and the basin from their usual place in the corner. He slips outside. He fills the basin with cool, clear water - his own motions, he thinks dimly, are just as mechanical as those of the well-worn, oft-used bamboo pump fixed to the wall of his best friend’s home. He slips inside. He crosses the room, feet padding lightly upon familiar wooden floorboards. He kneels once again at his Jū-chan’s side. He sets the basin of water at his knee, within easy reach of his strong hands.
And Kyōraku Shunsui begins to work.
He starts by cleaning the blood from his friend’s face. He dips one cloth into the basin of water, and touches it to Ukitake’s temple, where most of the blood has gathered and dried. To think, Kyōraku reflects, dazed, that Yama-jii would dare to wound him like that. Would Yama-jii have killed Ukitake, if he’d had the chance? Would Yama-jii have killed me…? Kyōraku does not know. All he knows is that he never, never expected, at this late time in his life, that Ryūjin Jakka might taste his blood again. He thought that he had left such dangers behind when he graduated from the Academy, all those years ago.
When his friend’s face is clear and his wound is clean, Kyōraku sets the bloodstained cloth to the side and, cautiously, extends his bare hand once more. He lays his palm upon his friend’s forehead – he’s burning hot – damn – but then, what the hell was I expecting? - before running his fingers, delicately, gently, along Ukitake’s jawline and down his neck - and his pulse - too fast, much too fast - but he takes some solace in the fact that, this time, his friend does not pull away from him. Though, Kyōraku thinks morosely, I’m not sure he has the strength for that anymore.
Kyōraku’s work grows even more efficient after that. With tender hands and deft, easy motions, he begins to guide Ukitake out of his clothes. He sits his friend up, supporting his heavy head and sagging shoulders, and relieves him first of his haori, and then of his kosode and shitagi. Kyōraku finds a sad sort of comfort in these movements; Ukitake’s body resists Kyōraku’s guidance a touch more wilfully than usual, but this part, if very little else about this day, is routine. It could almost be a normal day, couldn’t it, Jū-chan? Kyōraku thinks, as he undoes the ties in his friend’s hakama, and lovingly slips waraji and tabi off his friend’s feet, one by one. A normal day, and your poor body just wasn’t strong enough to keep you standing until sundown. How many hundreds of times has that happened, Jū-chan?
At the end, Kyōraku sweeps that long, white hair to one side and lays his friend - gently, gently - back down. He hesitates, uncertain. Normally, this is the part where he curls up beside his Jū-chan, where he pulls his Jū-chan close and kisses his neck, his shoulders, kisses his way down his Jū-chan’s arms to the insides of his wrists, to his fingertips - where he uses those light, loving kisses to let his Jū-chan know that, even in sickness, even in darkness, he is not, and will never be, alone.
But…
But things are different tonight.
His Jū-chan is different tonight.
His Jū-chan is sick, yes... his Jū-chan is in pain, yes...
But this is a sickness of the heart. Isn’t it, my friend?
Kyōraku draws a long, deep breath, and he lets it out, slowly, shaking, through clenched teeth.
What, he wonders dumbly, should I do now?
***
Days pass.
The pain, however, does not.
Every morning, he rises, and he faces his tasks with efficiency and resolve. He writes his reports, and he supervises the necessary reparations in the Thirteenth Division, and he attends meetings and assemblies and consultations. The aftermath of Sōsuke-kun's treason sees the Seireitei transformed into a whirl of activity; there are buildings to reconstruct, and there are laws to enforce in the absence of the Central-46, and there is also, of course, the standard run of skirmishes to take care of outside the Seireitei - because neither the ragged bands of thugs and criminals nor the hungry hollows who live deep in the distant Rukongai have put their usual activities on hold in light of the recent events. Wounds, too, must be tended, and with the Fourth Division stretched as it is, he is frequently called upon for his kidō skills and his wealth of medical knowledge, and for his comforting smile.
And so, Jūshirō smiles.
He smiles, and he speaks kind words, and he oversees, and he heals. And every evening, he collapses, utterly exhausted, and he closes his eyes, and he prays for the night to last a long, long time.
Jūshirō dreams, most nights. He dreams, and he wishes, desperately, that the visions flickering behind his closed eyes were visions only. The pit of his stomach churns, sick and empty, every time the word betrayal creeps unbidden into his slumbering thoughts, and even as he sleeps, his temples pound in constant, solemn, hollow accompaniment to the fresh waves of memory. Images of bloodstained blades and shattered spectacles and gaping, black holes in immaculate blue skies flash ceaselessly through his whirling mind. And always, that stark silhouette, clad in the robes of a Captain and the mantle of a villain both, radiating reiatsu and reeking of havoc, hovers, as if in mockery, behind his tight-shut eyes. "I am trying to go higher," the silhouette says, arrogant ambition dripping in its words, speaking with a voice slides like silk and cuts like smooth glass. "Goodbye," it says. "Goodbye, Shinigami…"
And to think, I once called that voice… the voice of a friend...
He wakes with a start in the small hours of the morning. Cold sweat bathes his brow and soaks his bedsheets. He can feel himself trembling. He can feel the way his breath has gotten locked, high and tight, inside his chest. He can feel the tears running, silent and hot, out of the corners of his eyes and down into his ears as he lays, frozen and helpless, in the dark.
He will find no more sleep tonight; he knows the patterns of his body and his mind well enough to be sure of that much.
He rises, pulling his blankets with him and wrapping them close about his thin shoulders. He pads barefoot across his chamber, and, quiet like a hypnotic whisper in the ear of an erstwhile friend, he slips outside, into the night.
He tilts his white head back, and he closes his eyes, and he breathes in, long and deep, savoring the cool night air. When he opens his eyes again and blinks up at the sky, the scattering of stars above him blinks back - bright, he thinks, but lonely, too. Beacons though they might be, the stars, he recognizes, have no friends.
The stars fade, too, with sunrise. He sees this with his own tired eyes today, as the sky turns violet, then muted pink, then fiery orange over the treetops that encircle his pond at Ugendō. "You balk in the presence of something brighter," Jūshirō whispers to the stars. "I understand. I understand that, little ones." His lips twitch weakly, with what might be his first real smile in days. "I can't say I blame you."
"...can't say you blame who, Jū-chan?"
Jūshirō turns. His mouth falls open, and it stays that way for the space of several slow heartbeats as he grasps for the words he needs. I didn't hear him coming... I didn't even sense his presence…
"No one," he finally says. "No one, Shunsui. I was talking to myself."
"Tch. Abut time, don't you think?"
"What?"
Shunsui's stubbly face bears a beguiling smirk below the shadows of his hat. "About time you stopped blaming yourself," he says.
Jūshirō feels his jaw clench at that. "That isn't what I meant."
"Oh, no?"
"No."
"Then what, eh?" Shunsui moves in closer, settling himself comfortably beside his friend and sweeping a broad arm around to rest on Jūshirō's shoulders. Jūshirō resists the urge to flinch. "Hey," Shunsui says gently, feeling Jūshirō stiffen beneath his touch. He draws his hand downwards, fingers spread and palm flat, and begins to rub small circles on Jūshirō's back. "Easy, Jū-chan," he murmurs. "Easy, okay?"
Jūshirō clutches even tighter at the blankets wrapped around him. "I suppose," he says, fighting to keep his voice from sounding tense, "that there was a summons this morning?"
"Mm," Shunsui says. "Came to let you know. Figured you might prefer that to Kiyone and Sentarō banging on your door at this ungodly hour." He pauses. "But then," he adds, "I've been wrong before…"
Jūshirō has nothing to say to that.
They stand together, wordless and weary and worn, until the sun just peeks over the treetops and and the sky begins to turn a thin, expectant shade of blue. Shunsui's hand has travelled upwards, and he's begun to twine his coarse fingers through Jūshirō's hair, which is still knotted in the places where he tossed and turned upon it in the night. Jūshirō is dimly aware that his eyes, caked with grit and heavy with fatigue, have started to drop closed, and that his body, unreliable as ever and accustomed to Shunsui's gestures of comfort, has started to sink, slowly, into his best friend's safe, warm embrace.
"You didn't sleep last night, did you, Jū-can?" comes Shunsui's voice in his ear.
"Mm," Jūshirō replies.
"You want me to take you inside? I can tell Yama-jii you aren't feeling well today."
"Mm."
"Is that a yes or a no, Jū-chan? You gotta give me more than that."
With an effort, Jūshirō pries his eyes open. He squints into the bright sunlight. "I'm not sure," he says, "that there's much point."
"Eh?" Shunsui's hand stops moving in Jūshirō's hair. "Whaddya mean by that?"
"Exactly what I said." Jūshirō tilts his head sideways, meeting his friend's gaze with a look that he hopes is fierce and inarguable. "What," he asks, "is the point?" He can feel both his voice and his hands starting to shake. "What can we do that we haven't already done?"
Shunsui's eyes flash with recognition. "Ah," he says. "Sōsuke-kun."
"Sōsuke-kun," Jūshirō echoes. The name tastes like ashes upon his tongue.
Suddenly, Jūshirō finds himself being whirled around. Somehow, his slender hands have been enveloped by Shunsui's large ones, and somehow, Shunsui's face has pressed right up against his, so close that Jūshirō can smell the days-old sweat on his skin and the hours-old sake on his breath. He's just as tired as I am, Jūshirō realizes abruptly, seeing for the first time how bloodshot his friend's eyes are and hearing for the first time how ragged his friend's breathing sounds.
And then, Shunsui speaks. "You gotta snap outta this, Jūshirō," he says, his words dark and determined and deadly certain. "There's nothing you coulda done, okay?" Jūshirō, for his part, is too shellshocked to say anything. "Okay?" Shunsui repeats, and Jūshirō manages a feeble nod in response. "There's nothing any of us could have done. You got that? That's just the way he is. That's the way he always was, even if we couldn't see it."
"I - I thought - "
"I know."
"I thought - "
"I know."
With that, Shunsui wraps his arms around his friend, and he pulls him in close - and it's a good thing he does, too, because Jūshirō isn't sure he would have the strength to stay on his feet without Shunsui there to hold him. "We all thought, Jū-chan."
And so, Jūshirō hangs his head. He lets out a rattling sigh, and he presses his body as hard as he dares against Shunsui's, clinging to him like a drowning man to a stray piece of driftwood in a raging river. More tears prick behind his eyes, and he lets them fall.
"I know you cared for him," Shunsui says.
"He's just a boy..."
"Not anymore."
"I taught him how to make tea," Jūshirō mumbles helplessly against Shunsui's chest.
Unexpectedly, laughter rumbles through Shunsui's body and vibrates all the way down to Jūshirō's bare toes. "I remember," he says, his words ringing with a peculiar combination of fondness and sadness. "I remember, Jū-chan…" After a moment, he raises a grizzled eyebrow, his expression suddenly coy and mischievous. "I'm gonna guess," he says, "that now would be a bad time to ask whether you regret endorsing him for his Captaincy, huh?"
Jūshirō bristles. "That," he says, "is not funny."
"You're smiling, my friend."
"I… I'm not, I... "
Shunsui laughs again. "Sorry," he says softly, and Jūshirō can tell that he means it. "That was in poor taste, even I can admit." Shunsui's eyes, grey like steel but uncannily warm for all that, flicker over his friend's face. "Some people just aren't touched by kindness the way others are, Jū-chan," he says. "No matter how hard we try. No matter how hard," he amends, "even a guy like you tries." He reaches up with his hard hands and brushes the pads of his fingers along Jūshirō's pale cheeks, wiping the tears from his friend's skin. "Sōsuke-kun made his choice. You chose to be kind, and he chose to ignore your kindness. That," he says, firmly, "isn't your fault. Okay?"
Jūshirō extends his own hand now, and presses it, hard, on top of Shunsui's. He nods, and, for the first time in days, he speaks with a conviction that reaches both his voice and his heart. "Okay."
"Okay," Shunsui says, and he places a tiny kiss on the crown of Jūshirō's head. "Now," he says, his voice big and rich, "what do you say we get a move on? I'll make the tea, and you can get dressed - I'm not sure how happy Yama-jii would be if you turned up at the First wearing a blanket instead of your haori."
Together, they turn their backs to the sunrise, and together, they take step after steadfast step until they reach the door to the private quarters of Ugendō.
Just as they are about to enter, Jūshirō stops.
"Eh?" Shunsui asks. "What is it, Jū-chan?"
"My question," he says quietly. "This still doesn't answer my question."
"Hm?" Shunsui frowns. "What question would that be?"
"Forgive me," Jūshirō says. "I promise, I won't be so dismal after this - "
"Just ask, Jūshirō."
Jūshirō stares, hard, into the bright sky; he finds that easier than looking at Shunsui, somehow. "What," he says, "can we do?"
"What," Shunsui repeats, considering, "can we do?" He follows Jūshirō's gaze, and his clever eyes shine with the morning light. He hums to himself, like he always does when he's searching for answers.
Then -
"Simple," he says. "We're soldiers, aren't we?"
He smiles grimly.
"We fight."