Work Text:
Thunder clattered through the courtyard, but Ichigo didn’t even flinch. Another clap would come any second, just like it had the night before, and the night before that. Just like it had all week. Every evening without fail, the heat of the day would meld with the clouds, shooting them into the sky like atomic fallout. The vast white was a promise, nature’s peace offering, but Ichigo was never convinced. The clouds’ anvil shape was all he needed to know what was coming.
A burst of lightning crackled over the yard, casting the summer flowers in light bright as the sun. Hardly a second later, the thunder fell.
Ichigo closed his eyes. He’d successfully petitioned Central Forty-Six for greater funding for the Gotei Thirteen’s mental health resource center. The Thirteenth had launched the second wave of its Rukongai outreach program, this one delving deeper into the lower districts. Rukia had reiterated that her maternity leave was beginning to itch, and he was now bringing home short stacks of paperwork to break up her monotony.
And on the day he turned three months old, his little hands curling around his father’s finger, Kaien had smiled for the first time, at last breaking his “Kurosaki scowl,” as Renji called it.
Each of these events revolving around his dedication, depending on his light for realization, Ichigo hadn’t even registered it was June until it was suddenly July.
Another burst of lightning, a louder crack of thunder.
Three nights ago, on the first of July, Rukia rubbed his back as he struggled to breathe. She murmured reassurances that he shouldn’t feel guilty, like it was so easy. Were there breath in his lungs he would’ve shouted at her for suggesting something so stupid. Then Kaien woke up, protesting his empty stomach. The hand on his back paused, and Rukia whispered her apology before turning away.
Somehow, he did not suffocate that night. Only for the breathlessness to return when he video-called his father and sisters the next day to confess. Yuzu silenced his concerns at once, reiterating his dedication to making the afterlife a better place and continual adaptation to fatherhood. Karin and the old man had been quick to agree, though neither looked at the camera. The old man hadn’t even cracked his usual joke about the width of Rukia’s hips and the big head his grandson inherited from his father.
He didn’t hold it against them. But he did wish they had been louder.
The worst part was that it had been raining on and off all of June. It wasn’t even a sign from some higher power, the weather. It was a replay of the worst day of his life, and still he didn’t see it.
At least then, the rain was likely to occur during the day as well. Now with July settling in, the rain kept itself to the night, sending him sunshine during the day. Its heat warmed, then overheated his body in his shihakusho, and if he wasn’t careful, he got lost in thinking about how the squad would need more water during training sessions, or how he needed to order more parasols and other implements of shade for the Rukongai outreach committee to pass out.
Then around three, the sky would begin to darken, and distant bursts of lightning would bring him back.
Devastation didn’t even begin to cover it. But whenever he thought to open a dictionary and find the right term once and for all, the Thirteenth or his son would drag him away again.
The rain drummed against the roof as the thunder inhaled before its next roar. Lightning flashed, and a low rumbling filled the room. Ichigo closed his eyes—only to open them again when the thunder actually hit. Nothing like a low rumble, but a falling tree, a ravaged forest. The hair on the back of his neck began to prickle, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw someone approaching.
Ichigo glowered at the window. Prayed it would be enough to send the intruder away, for his words would not be nearly as kind.
If the intruder saw, they were not persuaded from their interruption. They only came to sit beside Ichigo and began to fumble with something in their hands.
Ichigo huffed as he at last turned to the intruder, only for the sound to cut off in an instant.
Byakuya was just setting down a bottle of sake and two stone cups. He did not remove the stopper, but pushed the bottle back to admire its label, almost as if he hadn’t even noticed Ichigo.
Ichigo looked away. Just what he needed. A lecture was still a lecture, whether or not its blow was softened by alcohol.
A brilliant spiderweb of lightning split the sky in half, and a shockwave of thunder rattled the windows.
“The first time I forgot, I didn’t leave my quarters for a week.”
In the thunder’s fade, Ichigo almost didn’t hear. Not that Byakuya had been whispering. His tone conveyed nothing but ownership. A statement of a fact.
Looking to him, Ichigo remained quiet.
Byakuya nodded once at the bottle as if in confirmation. “It felt as though I’d been smacked over the head with a shinai. I attempted to justify it to myself, but that didn’t change that I’d forgotten perhaps the worst day of my life.”
Something in Ichigo’s chest began to give way, but he clenched it in his fist. Held it even when it began to hurt.
“The shock faded quickly, though I still don’t know if that was a blessing or a curse,” Byakuya said. He set the bottle down, an emotion on his face Ichigo had never seen him express but could immediately identify: disbelief. “Guilt wasn’t even the worst of it. It was the shame—is the shame. I should have known better. She was everything, and I’d gone and spit on her grave.” He closed his eyes, his mouth tightening into a grimace. “And then I did it again. Not once, but twice.”
Ichigo looked away, his chest just as well as his fist tightening in exasperation. Did Byakuya think this would make him feel better, knowing that it was only going to get worse? Was he actually supposed to appreciate the warning?
Slowly, Byakuya’s expression relaxed into mournful guilt, then back into inscrutable placidity. Almost like he’d never shown anything but. “In recent years,” he said quietly, “I’ve come to accept what I did.” Distant thunder boomed beneath his words, unaccompanied by lightning. “What choice do I have, really? I can’t change it.”
An argument burned in Ichigo’s stomach, but the second it touched his tongue, he knew its futility.
“No, I can’t change what I’ve done, but I can own it. That I feel guilt means I haven’t truly forgotten her. Because I react so strongly to forgetting Hisana’s passing, I know that I still hold her close. If I were to dismiss my actions, now, that would mean something else entirely.”
Byakuya’s gaze at last turned to him. His eyes were steady, but only just. “The guilt will not leave you, Ichigo,” he said plainly. “But that your mother remains so close and so dear is what matters. She is not slipping away because you forget her. She is still with you because in the end, you remember her at all.”
He wasn’t supposed to say that. What gave him the right to voice it exactly as it was? Who was Kuchiki Byakuya to make his fist unclench, break the levee that was barely holding inside him?
To his credit, he didn’t say a thing as Ichigo pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. He offered no comment when his shoulders began to heave or something strangled escaped his throat, falling between the thunderclaps’ protection.
When the worst of it had reduced to the occasional sniff and a stray drop on his cheek, Ichigo looked out to the rain-drenched garden. Puddles had turned the grass into a pond, and even in shadow it was clear that more than a few of the summer flowers had been damaged by the driving rain.
He took a deep, shaky breath. “I just want her here,” he whispered. “I want her to see me. I want her to know Rukia, and I really want her to meet Kaien.” Another deep breath, for he needed it.
Byakuya nodded. “Me too,” he said softly.
A minute’s silence between them, beyond them.
Blinking rapidly, Byakuya reached for the sake bottle and carefully removed the stopper. He admired the label again before pouring them each a cup. “This was served at my and Hisana’s wedding,” he explained. “I had this bottle preserved with a special Kido to keep it fresh. I intended for us to share it on our ten-year anniversary, but now I bring it out when I feel I must.”
Taking his cup from Byakuya, Ichigo eyed the bottle. Through the green glass, the sake was coming to rest after its most recent pour, but it was obvious that no less than one third of it was already gone. Removing just that many more chances to drink this precious alcohol in the future.
And now Byakuya was sharing it with him.
Ichigo returned his gaze to his cup. Stared at it hard. Held it fast as more lightning crackled across the sky.
He lowered his head as the thunder boomed seconds later. “Thank you,” he murmured.
Byakuya brought his cup to his lips. “My pleasure.”
They drank deeply, and for just a moment, the storm fell silent.