Characters: Isshin, Ryuuken, mentions of Masaki and Ichigo
Summary: Grief is a prison.
Pairings: Isshin x Masaki
Warnings/Spoilers: No spoilers
Timeline: Just after Masaki dies
Author's Note: I can imagine them having this sort of conversation.
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.
"You'll have to keep an eye on your son now. You must know how important that is."
The day is far from cold and is actually quite muggy and humid, but it's overcast and gray. It will probably rain soon, Isshin thinks. Good. The hard ground under him, not the freshly turned earth in front, is dry and cracked. It will need more rain.
"Yeah, I know." After the initial wave of fresh grief, there's only emptiness, a weary need to sleep. Isshin's tired, every bone in his body aches and there's a new strain of guilt that is especially impossible to ignore. He shouldn't be ignoring it, anyway.
Ryuuken's eyes narrow slightly when Isshin, crouching in front of the tombstone, peers up at him. His hair's all silver now, not a single residual trace of brown. He's not even forty yet, his face is only finely lined, but he looks old, old, old indeed. "What?"
"You look so old." Isshin registers how stupid those words are, and how useless, but feels like he has to say them. He has to say something to fill up those monstrous silences. Otherwise, there's nothing to do but reflect.
"Oh, thanks awfully." Ryuuken's gaze is now incisively piercing. "Let me reiterate: You have to look after your son now. He'll need you."
Ichigo is piled against the roots of a great tree, pale and pallid and limp, and he almost looks dead like Masaki did under the docks.
Ichigo seems as one of the dead a bit early, Ryuuken looks ready to keel over any day now, and Isshin's more than a little disturbed to come to the realization that he'll most likely outlive him. Masaki's gone, and Isshin can't understand why he's so fixated on thoughts of death so suddenly; he never thought about it this much when he was still an active Shinigami.
Then, it comes over him again.
There would have been a need for a Shinigami that night, but when she really needed him, he was nowhere to be found.
"Isshin?" Ryuuken's flat, dull voice—strange how that works; it used to be just as monotonous but so much more full of life than this; of course, he's had his own grief, far too much, to deal with—doesn't quite bring him back to reality, but comes close enough. Ryuuken's good at bringing people back to earth unceremoniously. "Did you hear me?"
He waves. "Yeah, yeah, I did." But he's not listening as Ryuuken goes on, the other man's words sparing and reticent—it's always been easy for Isshin to block Ryuuken out; years of experience of blocking out the younger man's threats and insults have made him more than capable of switching his selective hearing on and off when he needs to.
Funny. Now all Isshin can remember is how Masaki's light brown hair seemed so red under that light, a bright, bright red. Red as a rose or blood when it spills directly from the head.
Eventually, Ryuuken has to notice that Isshin's not listening to him anymore; he usually picks up on this a little more quickly but today everything else is off so why shouldn't Ryuuken's perception be slow on the uptake too?
"Isshin, are you even listening to me?"
"No."
Ryuuken sighs. "Why does that not surprise me?" Because he's had nineteen years of experience with Isshin's selective hearing at this point and very little about the former Shinigami surprises him anymore. He narrows his eyes against a slight roll of thunder in the distance.
And instinctively, they both know that even though the sky threatens rain, it won't. It's just bluffing emptily.
"Where are your daughters?" This question's entirely out of the blue and coupled with the suddenly shrewd look on the Quincy's face Isshin can't say that he isn't starting to get suspicious.
"With my in-laws; where else? Ryuuken, what's this all about?"
Eyes behind glasses flick quickly to the tombstone before turning back on Isshin, just as piercing as they ever are; Isshin's not sure how a nearsighted man accomplishes this. "I suspect you wish," he murmurs very softly, "that you could have saved Masaki."
This makes him bristle. "Of course I do." Isshin's eyes grow somewhat weak as they scan the tombstone again, lingering long over the name. "I should have been able to," he mutters quietly.
"Well don't." Isshin can understand why Ryuuken's son has a hard time looking him in the eye in this moment, when Ryuuken's voice is horribly flat and blunt. "All misplaced guilt and thoughts of things you should have done but didn't do will give you nothing but sleepless nights and misery to no end."
"Where do you—"
Ryuuken shakes his head. "Don't talk. Just listen to me. If this is the last time you ever listen to me, listen now. Trust me when I say you need to look after your children; if nothing else, it will give you something resembling purpose. Guilt and grief will just cause you to decay and degenerate until you become your guilt, your grief."
His gaze is not unkind even as his eyes are still utterly dull. No life to be found there, just the empty mockery of life. "Grief is a prison. Try not to get locked up."
Even though it's plain to Isshin that Ryuuken's never followed his own advice, he sees the merit in the words. Can see it when his friend still labors under the weight of his own grief, shoulders bowed, eyes dulled, what grief might do to him.
The thunder comes again.
It threatens rain, but the ground will be dry.
It will always be dry, and barren, and lifeless.
Grief presses down on this land, in every tombstone that dots the earth.