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The wound was ugly, and the scar was harsh. It was angry red at first, but after a few sessions of healing, it became pink then started to whiten out at his temple. The new flesh was bumpy and the skin was shiny above it. His ear was okay, he heard everything and the missing piece looked even a little bit cool.
The problem was his eye. They didn’t know what to do with it. His sight was hopeless. It was pretty clear for everybody that even if the eyeball stays, he will never see with it. After a few days of fighting for it, Shunsui finally asked for the removal. The amount of pain he felt wasn't worth something useless anyway.
So his right eye was gone, and an empty socket stayed after it. The protocol should have been to sew down the eyelid, but the damage was too big. There was nothing to sew. Retsu Unohana personally did the removal, and he fixed up his face more or less, but the area where his eye should have been was ugly. Really ugly. Ugly enough not to show. He knew it by the way his nurses never looked at his face during bandage change, and by the fact that in the morning, when he left the 4th division, Kotetsu vice-captain shyly put an eyepatch to his night desk.
He was let go home a few days earlier. Juushiro asked Retsu for the leave. He was with him when he woke up at the nursery, but he could visit rarely and only for a few minutes. He wanted to sleep in his room, but Shunsui forbade him to risk his own health just to watch him struggle with the bandages and the pain all night. So Juushiro was very persuasive when it was about his homecoming.
Retsu let him go only with one condition: Juushiro has to give him a healing session every day during rewrapping. It wasn’t a big sacrifice after all he had plenty of experience in healing kidos. He always looked at his face during rebandaging. He even murmured some healing spells over the scar. He never ever looked away from his wound. He even smiled at him gently when he caught Shunsui peeking with his left eye. He always wrapped the new bangade with care and when he finished he always gave a kiss to the white fabric over the lost eye. Shunsui was sure that his lips had healing potential too, because he always felt less pain after the gesture.
And this is why it was a big surprise when he first saw himself in the mirror. It was the morning of the day he finally had to leave the house and return to his duties. Apparently the nurses were right: the scar was really ugly. It was deep and bumpy and desperately tried to fill the place where his eye should have been. Shunsui felt his stomach clenching and the world started spinning. He was about to throw up right there, in front of the mirror.
‘I am ugly’ he said quietly just for the mirror
‘It’s just the scar, not you, and it’s not that ugly.’
Shunsui jumped when he felt Juushiro’s reiatsu on his right. He didn’t see him coming into the room. Juushiro was thoughtful enough to always let him know that he is coming with his spiritual pressure but he couldn’t ask it from everyone in the gotei 13. Another thing he has to get used to. Not just the face in the mirror.
Juushiro stepped behind him, propped his chin to his right shoulder and looked at them.
‘It’s not that bad’ he said gently. He reached up and arranged his signature hairlock to his right side, over his eye.
‘I will need that patch after all.’ Shunsui said without looking away from his own face.
‘Only if you feel comfortable with it.’ his husband cooed quietly, still looking at both of them in the mirror. ‘It’s for your pleasure, not for others.’
Shunsui got nervous. He always thought his face was a pleasure to look at. It seems like it wasn’t anymore. Juushiro still studied his face, and that made his mouth dry.
‘Are you comfortable with it?’ he asked quietly.
Juushiro blinked and lifted his chin. He put his slender hands on Shunsui’s hips and turned him away from the mirror. After looking at his own scar for so long, connecting his gaze with his husband’s emerald green eyes was a blessing. He looked at him with his special, soft look, he always gave him, when he was sad but tried to hide it.
‘I am always comfortable with you.’
Okay, he was pitying him. Shunsui wasn’t even mad. He was pitying himself too.
He looked down between them. He couldn’t see Juushiro’s face when he said aloud his next sentence:
‘I thought you chose me because of my pretty face.’
There was no answer. Just silence. The hands left his hips, but returned immediately embracing his cheeks. They turned Shunsui’s face again toward Juushiro’s. He gave him a hard look, the one when he said something silly. Then his expression softened and Juushiro smiled at him shyly.
‘Maybe I chose you for your eyes, but I stayed with you for yourself.’
His husband leaned into his space. Shunsui closed his eye, waiting for the soft lips on his own, but it didn’t come. Instead silky hair brushed his nose and his right cheek, then felt a gentle push on his scar. He winced and opened his eyes to see Juushiro’s lips close to the right side of his face.
He didn’t feel much about the kiss on his scar. The new skin didn’t have much sensation. But he knew it happened. He felt a strange squeeze in his chest and breathing became harder. His left eye started stinging and he realized he was about to cry.
‘Get yourself together you sappy old fart!’ he scolded himself in his mind and forcefully evened out his breathing. When Juushiro leaned back, he didn’t let him go far and bumped their foreheads together. They stayed like this for a while, breathing the same air quietly.
‘And anyway…’ Juushiro started again, petting his face with his thumbs. ‘Asymmetry is sexy. And pirates are sexy too.’
Shunsui gave him a confused look:
‘Pirates?’
‘You know the bandits at the seas with the eyepatch and the wooden leg. Those who shit on the laws and drink rum all day.’
Ah, yes, he remembered them from one of the children's stories Juushiro wrote. The drunken bandits that had awfully similar character traits to him. Sometimes with oddly specific details.
‘I would be a good pirate.’ Shunsui said with a half smile.
‘Yeah, I bet you would.’ Juushiro laughed
‘Maybe an eyepatch is not the end of the world.’ He said very quietly. Maybe just for himself.
‘No, not at all.’ Juushiro whispered back, reassuring him.
His partner stepped back, swiftly moved to their night stand and snatched the eyepatch from one of the drawers. He went back to him and looked at him asking for permission. When he nodded, very careful hands arranged the patch against his scar, and delicate fingers loomed the strings around his head. Juushiro arranged the patch a bit, then leaned back to study his work. He must have thought it was okay, because a cheeky grin spread on his face.
‘Now say it after me: Aaaarrrrgggghhhh!’ He asked with a stupid expression on his face.
Shunsui blinked surprised then barked out a laugh. Ah, of course. Pirates. He grinded his throat, looked at his husband then clenched his face into a silly grimace and made the most piratey ‘ Aaaaargggh!’ he could.
Juushiro giggled frantically. His pale face turned pink from the joy and his laugh tinkled around the room and down Shunsui’s spine.
‘It’s perfect.’ He said softly, then stepped close to him again, enclasped his face with his hands one more time, and finally joined their lips.
Shunsui let himself melt into the kiss. Now he was sure that his husband’s lips bore some magic powers, letting all of his pain go away from his life.
End