A/N: Please read and review, this is my first fic! yay! :-P
Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach.
No Words
It was one of those unusual nights Ise Nanao found it difficult to fall asleep. Unbelievably, there was no paperwork that was overdue, no reports left undone, the budget balanced for the next month. The Eighth Division fukutaicho believed it was the uncertainty of tomorrow that unnerved her so much that her mind couldn't rest at trying to plan out the next day. These nights, Nanao would bring a book to the office after hours to distract herself from her racing thoughts. Her favorite spot was on the office couch. It ran along the front wall underneath a large window in the eighth's main office which is where she could be found tonight. Nanao hid her reiatsu because she'd rather not concern anyone why she was in the office so late that night, especially her captain. She knew that behind his flamboyant and lackadaisical ways, there was an intelligent and caring man - which she was one of his greatest concerns. He never let her work too much, nor allowed her to go to a festival unaccompanied or dirty her hands with bloodshed when he considered it unnecessary. They had created quite the symbiotic relationship over the years. She's learned many things that books could never tell her while serving under Kyouraku Shunsui for the past hundred some odd years.
With all her musing, Nanao became distracted and forgot about keeping her whereabouts hidden that she let slip some of her reiatsu. Only then did she notice the man she'd been musing about had walked into the room. She looked up and dark brown eyes caught her own and held them. She took note of how he seemed so somber, distracted and a hint worried. Nanao saw in his eyes the knowledge of centuries, possibly millennia gone by, overwhelming thoughts and unease she knew that she was the cause of and made her guilty. But when the initial distress and worry melted away there was something else she couldn't miss and it made her catch her breath. The way Shunsui looked at her caused her skin to tingle, her abdomen to melt and forget the book she was reading.
Thousands of years are difficult to forget, especially the ones filled with war and sadness. Most of the time drowning the memories in sake did the trick, or at least blurred his vision into the past, but not tonight. Sake and flirting with women didn't interest Shunsui tonight and on these nights, he likes going by his Nanao-chan's quarters and sitting outside in the garden just feeling her reiatsu drift quietly into the night while she slept. He never stayed if she was awake, he didn't want to disturb her. But the nights she was sleeping, he let her presence comfort him from the terrors of living such a long afterlife. Tonight she wasn't there at all and that worried him deeply. Knowing his dutiful Nanao-chan, the next place she'd be in would be their headquarters, filling out the papers from the never-ending stack of reports. When he walked in he still felt nothing after he took a few steps into the office, Shunsui really began to worry until he caught a hint of her coming from the couch under the window. And what he saw when he looked simply took his breath away.
Nanao was reclined with her back to the far armrest and her legs up on the seat next to her. She had her glasses on top of her head and she had let her hair out of her usual bun. Nanao was wearing a simple lavender yukata with an indigo obi tied to her side and still wore her socks but her sandals placed neatly on the floor beside the couch. She was reading by the brilliant moonlight and her forgotten book lay on her right thigh curled under left leg.
Shunsui couldn't believe how much his little fukutaicho could affect his breathing, his heart rhythm, among other parts of himself. He truly enjoyed the company of women, appreciated their beauty and charms but over the years, they started to pale in comparison to his porcelain little Nanao-chan. Yes he had loved, lost, rejected and been rejected himself but Nanao invoked an entirely new emotion he couldn't quite pin down. At first he had thought it being a fatherly sort of thing, but quickly reconsidered when his heart skipped a beat when she touched him on accident. After awhile, he talked with Ukitake-taicho on the matter, because his best friend had insight to these sorts of things. Ukitake first looked at him with disbelief, totally convinced Shunsui was joking, but after he saw the serious look on his friends face his lips curled into a smile, and then burst out laughing. Shunsui was a bit frustrated at his reaction, but Jyuushiro explained that Shunsui was absolutely smitten and it was about time he'd figured out that he had found his better half.
Shunsui silently strode up to his Nanao and sat on the edge of the couch, never breaking their eye contact. As he took her left foot up into his right hand she opened her mouth to comment on his inappropriate and unusual behavior but he cut her off.
"Shhhh Nanao, don't speak" he whispered in a deep tone that sent chills up her spine. That rumbling voice and the lack of honorifics and flowery additions to her name further drove tomorrow's worries out of her mind. He continued to lift he leg up with his large calloused hand and moved her yukata up to her knee with his left. He slowly lowered his head to her shin and kissed her skin softly while still holding her gaze and continued kissing her up to her knee and lowered her leg back to the couch. His hand lingered on her knee and foot, relishing the contact with his Nanao.
"My lovely Nanao, living here in the afterlife is not about the reports and ranks, the budget and files, the things you say or even the amount of times you breathe. It's about the times there are no words, the times that you're breathless." he paused letting the words sink in, "And if that's true, I have lived so much more than I thought possible since the time I met you."
Nanao loves learning from her captain and tonight, she learned her captain loves her.