Characters: Rukia, Byakuya, Uryuu, Ryuuken, Orihime, Ulquiorra, Gin, Aizen, Hiyori, Shinji and Urahara
Summary: The best times of five strained relationships.
Pairings: slight Shinji x Hiyori
Warnings/Spoilers: General spoilers
Timeline: Varies
Author's Note: Here goes. Reviews are made of love, people.
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.
1
Rukia and Byakuya never seem so comfortable around each other as in the days after his near-death at the hands of Ichimaru Gin, just after the defection of Aizen, Ichimaru and Tousen from Soul Society.
The servants of the Kuchiki manor could hardly fail to notice what had befallen their master's adopted sister. Though few pretend to harbor true opinions about the mistress of their household, there were even fewer who could pretend to agree with their master. Most were instead disgusted and appalled by Byakuya's willingness to see Rukia die; some for the girl's own sake, but more because they know why Byakuya adopted her in the first place, at least they think they know why he did.
She reminds him of Hisana. And how can he callously cut off the last connection of her to his dying heart?
Somehow, when he's lying in bed and she's kneeling beside him, all the tension that was there before is gone now.
He doesn't say anything, of course. Their master is just as silent as he ever has been.
But he doesn't even seem to need to.
All he has to do is look at her, really look at her, and she smiles.
2
It's a little known secret that actually was a time in the relationship between Ishida Uryuu and his father when it was somewhat happy. Watching them interact know, most everyone who knows the former would, of course, be incapable of believing that the two of them were ever even remotely happy together.
Of course, it was more a case of ignorance is bliss than true, knowing happiness. It's a tale of a train wreck and how the people on board didn't see the other train coming until it was too late.
Uryuu is happiest around Ryuuken in the days before he's capable of perspective and memory. The two are happiest when Uryuu is too young to really know that the way his father treats him is a method considered anathema to most parents, even taking into account the effects of grief and just wanting to find a way out.
When he's still too young to understand, he can't see the snowy glaze over Ryuuken's eyes. He can't see how their like mirrors instead of windows—presenting the watcher with a distorted image of themselves. He can't see how his father never smiles.
The bloom goes off the relationship pretty quickly (not that it was ever really on to begin with), but Uryuu remembers faintly the days before he could recognize that, when he was a toddler and his father's arms were wrapped around him, that the arms around him, though tight and possessive, were not warm.
Everything was better when he still believed in love.
3
Maybe it's out of pity that Ulquiorra begins to soften towards his captive, if he is even capable of such emotions. Orihime notices it after he tells her for the umpteenth time—hours seem more like days on Hueco Mundo, time moving so sluggishly—that no one will come for her.
Her heart pounds in her chest as she stares up—unsmilingly—at her jailor as he looks her over once, and frowns. Orihime wonders what is the matter now, feeling that same numb wave of ice over her, that's come sweeping over every moment of time since she was taken to Hueco Mundo. She thinks the atmosphere is having an affect on her.
Ulquiorra, abruptly and with the frustration of a small child confronted with a puzzle he can't solve, asks her what love is, and Orihime sees the opportunity to teach.
Compassion demands nothing less, after all.
4
There are days when Gin starts to reconsider killing Aizen.
He supposes he's starting to slip under the man's spell, hypnosis without Aizen ever saying "Shatter". The man's very good at that, it's hard not to notice.
Too good for Gin's liking.
It bothers him that Aizen is so charismatic, so magnetic, so seductive that for moments, increasing at a time, he wonders why he wants to kill him.
Aizen is actually making Gin forget his purpose. He's muddying the waters, spilling ink onto him, and he doesn't like it.
Thankfully, these moments pass, and Gin is able to clear the fog from his head and remember.
But it still bothers him.
He'll have to be more careful.
5
Hiyori is at her most docile around Urahara in the days immediately following their banishment from Soul Society.
Later, Hiyori will argue that it's because she's dead tired and too out of it, head spinning and pounding from having to deal with a new inhabitant in her brain, to be her normal charming self and scream at him about every gentle-voiced order he gives her.
The truth is different, as Shinji is so fond of pointing out. Hiyori whaps him over the head with her sandal, blushing all the time, but he's right, of course. Somehow, he's always right, and that's what annoys Hiyori most about Shinji.
In truth, Hiyori is scared. Too scared to be disobedient. Anything and everything Urahara tells her to do, she does, and for the first time in her life can see concern in the man's eyes when he looks at her.
Hiyori is terrified, in fact. Of that voice that niggles at her without mercy. The voice that taunts and teases and roars and screams, human and animal, bestial and coldly intelligent. It mocks her without mercy, voice mixing on the taunts she knows so well.
Because maybe Hiyori will become the voice. Maybe this new creature will gain dominance over the fleshy vessel they both share, and she'll be the voice, a bodiless thing that has lost itself and can exist only in darkness.
So Hiyori listens to Urahara, does whatever he tells her.
After all… He's the only one who can save her now.