It had taken Isshin's breath away, the first time Ichigo stripped for him. How he'd stood there, back to the mirror; peeled his shirt off of that trim, muscled torso, stepped out of his jeans and scraped his socks off – a curiously feminine gesture – how his thick, curving shaft had sprung proudly free from his boxers. But more than all of that, his scars. Seeing those wicked lines on his baby boy's skin made the old man's throat catch, heart swelling with feeling. So much hurt. So many wounds. And still he stood there, whole and unbowed. Totally unashamed. Totally composed. Everything was out in the open, right there in his eyes. Shoulders back, chin up, hips cocked slightly forwards. Not a second thought about what he'd told his father he wanted done to him; about the scandal; about the stigma. He was completely resolved; he knew his will.
Isshin thought he had never seen someone so very naked, or so beautiful.
And when Ichigo had stretched out an open hand, smiling, and said to him "Come on, old man. Are you just going to leave me hanging?", Isshin couldn't help but grin like an idiot at this young god who had somehow fallen into his life. And so he had risen from the edge of the bed, gone to his son, and taken him in hand, their mouths meeting in that oldest language, and their joining was sweet like sunlight.
And some time later, when Isshin finally lay heavy and spent atop him, Ichigo had asked if he really meant what he'd shouted in the heat of climax, as the thick white fluid pumping from his shaft had forever marked Ichigo's virgin passage as his own. Isshin thought back to a rushed, frenzied shout of "Ichigo! Ichigo! Oh God, Ichigo! I love you so much!" He took his son's questionng lips in a deep and tender kiss, and then placed another on his forehead, and a third on his scalp, before whispering in his ear "Yes."
"Say it again," Ichigo had said wistfully.
"Ichigo," Isshin said, and kissed the boy on the lips. "Ichigo," he repeated, and kissed his way down the column of the boy's throat. "Oh God, Ichigo," he said, with a kiss to his collarbone. "I love you so much," he finished as he trailed down the redhead's chiseled chest.
"Good," Ichigo said with just a hint of relief as he intertwined his fingers in Isshin's hair. He started as the older man took a nipple between his teeth. "Oh!"