Characters: Ryuuken, Uryuu
Summary: The old dragon and the young one.
A/N: The word "argentine" means silver, in case you don't know.
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.
There are two left now, one drenched in bitterness and the other feeling the weight of the other's cold all too keenly against his own skin. The old dragon and the young one, braced against the other. Ryuuken who has turned the icy blasts of his anger on the world and anyone unfortunate enough to dig too deep beneath his skin or even tries; Uryuu, who still feels those storms on his skin and can do nothing but turn it all inward.
No names against the dark of anonymity and threatening clouds. No names where names are erased.
One is a ghost in flesh and the other the flesh of a ghost; not quite alive but not dead either. They both try to escape their pasts; one tries to outgrow the shadows and the other attempts self-inflicted amnesia. It never works very well for either of them.
They can't keep from clashing. To try to stop has only been attempted by the young dragon, the child-who-isn't-a-child-yet-somehow-is, and he figured out quickly that this isn't going to lead to anything but to his death. If not a death of flesh than a death of something entirely more important, something he clings to at all costs.
Maybe, once upon a time, they were white, untarnished, unstained. Not anymore. One is stained by smoke and resentment and the other by memories and words, and they're something more akin to silver. There's no outrunning those memories.
This is what is seen: an old dragon and a young one. A man with silver hair who at once looks young and ancient beyond words, cigarette balanced in his teeth and letting blue-gray smoke trail lazily from his mouth. A child who coughs at the smoke and avoids his father's gaze and notice whenever possible, just trying to escape his shadow and never quite succeeding.
And all they know is that when their shadows meet, they can't look at each other. The older twists his words to form knives and the younger picks silver scales and needles out of his hands.
What is in the eyes is too real.