Disclaimer: I claim no ownership over 'Bleach' nor am I profiting from this in any way, shape, or form.
Pairing(s): Ukitake Juushirou/Unohana Retsu/Zaraki Kenpachi.
Warning(s): None.
Word Count: 1,003.
First Time; Threesome: F/M/M.
Retsu Unohana warns all incoming squad members: some may view healing as lesser work. Less exciting or honorable than fighting. Healing steals energy, care, and will consume you just as fighting does. Be wary of attachment to patients, their family, and friends. Some take her warning without question, accepting their captain's wisdom as truth. A few attempts maintain professionalism within their attachments. Fewer manage to balance the continuous pull by patients and demands by their personal lives. Retsu watches those fewer, apologetic and helpless as they harden from loss. Work becomes their focus, taken over by the desire to save everyone, like that could squash their guilt over one patient.
Today, her guilt-riddled party is a young man, still fresh from the academy. His breathing is ragged and his shoulders quake with barely contained sobs. Retsu scans the papers littering her desk and leans back in her chair.
"I would prefer you not move squads," she says. "Sometimes a loss occurs even when we do everything possible. But we accept that we did everything possible, accept comfort from fellow squad members, and offer comfort to those left behind."
His voice wobbles. "May I have time to consider my placement?"
Her smile is the rare one that she reserves for behaving patients. "Please take all the time you need."
His shoulders stop quaking for a moment, hunching towards his ears, a silent thank you before he scurries from her office. Isane hums sympathetically, hugging her clipboard tighter to her chest and shaking her head.
"A first loss is always difficult," she murmurs. "It was a squad eleven member; I think he fears retaliation."
Like attachment, she gives warnings for the inevitable fear that comes with healing and its failures. Her infamous smile hushes difficult patients. Her feigned innocence over the subsequent results draws laughter. Her infamous smile and feigned innocence are only temporary balms, though. Members resume work with just a little less panic. A difficult patient fusses less, choosing glaring and pouting as their new method of harassment.
"Experience builds security," she says and gathers his papers. "I certainly hope he reconsiders transferring. However, I'll never push someone to remain on a squad which makes them uncomfortable."
"Should I have someone check up on him?"
Her clipboard will be smothered should she squeeze it any tighter. Retsu glances from the clipboard towards her face. Her lips are mashed together in a thin line. Her jaw is clenched tightly.
"I believe checking on him would be appropriate. But remember that rejections for the company aren't personal."
Isane allows her shoulders to slump and jaw to unclench, shooting her a relieved grin as she sprints past her. Retsu tries her best. She really does, but she cannot bring herself to return it.
Kenpachi Zaraki neither blubbers nor weeps. Kenpachi Zaraki howls and wails complete with vicious sobbing. Juushirou crawls into his lap and clutches his shoulders and robe, searching for stabilization. He weeps. His lips are caked with dry blood and she wonders how many attacks today?
Anyone else would drown in his enormous lap. Anyone else would lose their voice under that hideous sobbing. Juushirou clutches onto his shoulders and robe, though, and begins pulling the bells from his hair.
"I know," she murmurs. "I know how much you despise these words. I believe them necessary, though."
Mercifully he goes still while she removes the bells. His breathing remains heavy and ragged. Juushirou loosens and then releases his knuckle-white grip on his shoulders, choosing instead to pet his deep facial scar. His whispers are lost under the jingling and heavy, ragged breathing. Retsu kneels and places the bells on the floor.
"You despise these words," she repeats. "I believe them necessary, though. I am sorry."
His mouth tastes like blood and sake. His lips are dry and now cracked open from furiously biting them, a poor attempt at stifling his sobs. Retsu dips her tongue into those cracks, searching, and discovers a scalding salt.
Her mouth tastes worse, she knows. Her mouth will always taste like blood. A man runs his tongue over those cracks, searching, and discovers an acidic cleanliness. Like her, Juushirou carries the same taste: blood and pieces of his insides.
Neither one asks her for this favor, but she seeks and searches for the blood, insides, sake, and tonight that scalding salt. Retsu licks, nibbles, and sucks these poisons down. Kenpachi and Juushirou share a clean, delicious kiss and she wishes that she knew its taste.
Their bodies are battered with bruises, scrapes, and scars. Kenpachi's purely improperly healed broken bones, injuries, and scars with origins, not even he can recall. Juushirou lacks those improperly healed broken bones, injuries, and scars with unknown origins. No, he certainly isn't squishy. His body is lean, muscles eager and jumpy under their touches. Her fingers graze knotted muscle and scars that she wishes this idiot would've just let her heal when it happened. Her finger skims over dry blood and those jumpy muscles.
Her touch cannot fix scars with mysterious origins. His muscles jump and twitch underneath their fingers. Juushirou gasps and whispers nonsense. Retsu kisses one of those protruding ribs and whispers: touch-starved.
Her mouth must be poison because Kenpachi chases her kisses with aggressive licking and nibbling. A perfect nibble on that protruding ribcage earns him a squeal and beautiful pink cheeks. For once, it's not a part of his ailment and she cannot thank him enough for chasing her poison away. A different part of her scolds: we made the poison.
Kenpachi reserves no compassion nor gentleness for poison. Retsu sinks down and allows him to flip her without so much as a, please. Her hair bleeds into Juushirous and their hair tries covering up the blood, insides, sake, and that scalding salt. His expression morphs into wonder and sympathy as her body is pushed up and down the floor, a ragdoll for him to unload his grief into. Retsu closes her eyes and takes the poison again and again.
I intended on using my 'first time' prompt for Unohana and Zaraki. However, my muse jumped in and demanded an angsty threesome between Ukitake, Unohana, and Zaraki.