Characters: Ryuuken, Uryuu
Summary: Ryuuken would never see the resemblance, but his son looked exactly like him when he slept. Careworn and tense, as though he never allowed himself to relax.
Pairings: None
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Timeline: Pre-manga
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.
It's never been more starkly noticeable than it is now, and Ryuuken tries as only he can to reject reality and make his eyes see something that's not there, not see something that is there. And he succeeds, more or less, though the truth still spouts afterimages to remind him of what's real and what he denies.
The darkness of the outside, pitch black and impenetrable, seeps into the house, broken only by the occasional blaring light of a car passing by on the road outside. It's so dark that Ryuuken almost doesn't see the mass on the couch, pulsating slightly and only infinitesimally lighter than that blackness all around it.
It only takes him a moment to realize what he's seeing.
Ryuuken forgets to be surprised when he flips on the lamp with one finger and Uryuu doesn't wake up. He's normally such a light sleeper that the sudden presence of light would be enough to wake him, but not tonight. It's only his face and upper body that are visible; everything past his waist melts back into darkness. There are text books out and open on the low-lying coffee table, the frayed and battered edges of loose papers sticking out from the pages.
This is the first surprise Ryuuken has experienced in a long time. He was prepared for the sight but is still a little taken aback by it.
Ryuuken had no idea his son still sat up waiting for him to come home. It's probably more that Uryuu didn't want him to know that he still sat up, but it doesn't matter anymore. He knows now. In the morning he will make no comment—only glance disinterestedly over the rim of his cup of coffee while Uryuu stumbles up from the couch and retreats into his room to get dressed, shoulders bowed like a soldier returning from war—, pretend he never saw a thing. Ryuuken's long since learned how to close his eyes to what he'd rather not see.
The empty, forlorn siren wail of a care passes by the living room window, casting golden shadows to pierce the darkness, if only briefly. Ryuuken thinks absently that he should close the curtains but forgets to in an instant. Details like that tend to fall away from him all too quickly when sleep starts to buzz at the edges of his consciousness.
His fingers curl around one of the stems of Uryuu's glasses. There are angry red marks against his pale skin where the frames have pressed into flesh. Trying to be gentle, Ryuuken pulls the glasses down the bridge of his nose and lays them down on top of the math book on the coffee table. Still, Uryuu doesn't even stir and Ryuuken begins to wonder exactly what time it is; he doesn't wear a watch and can't keep track of time with anything resembling skill.
For some reason that Ryuuken has never, will never understand, this sight will still be etched on his mind years afterwards, with perfect clarity, springing to mind whenever he closes his eyes and lets his mind wander for even a second. His ten-year-old son, asleep on the couch, sure to wake up in the morning sore, tire and hungry (Ryuuken can detect no sign that Uryuu's eaten anything at all). It's been two years, he recalls, since he last saw Uryuu asleep, and wonders why the sight of him asleep now gives him any pause at all.
That's where he starts to overwrite the truth as it comes uncomfortably close to breaking the surface of his skin. It's done unconsciously, the quick, involuntary, slightly insidious process that erases memories or simply modifies them, altering perception with frightening efficiency.
As he's grown, the resemblance Uryuu bears his mother has diminished in some ways and only intensified in others. He's just starting to lose the baby roundness that formed a facial shape nearly identical to hers; white skin begins to pull tight across cheekbones, creating concave hollows where rounded cheeks once existed, and Uryuu looks slightly sickly the same way she did (Fitting, considering how frail his health once was; Ryuuken has vivid, none-too-fond memories of having to whip out a thermometer every other week, like clockwork, at one point in Uryuu's early life). And at the same time (it's much more clearly seen now, with glasses absent and eyes drawn shut), there's color to his eyelids that matches the shade of ground cobalt dust, eyelids shadowed bruise blue the way hers were.
If Ryuuken listens hard enough, he thinks he can hear her saying Don't forget me. Or maybe the voice is that of his son's. He can't tell.
As if he could ever forget.
There's something else now too, thickening the air to the point that it's almost too dense to breathe, shadowing Uryuu and makes Ryuuken wonder if he would still see these things if he found some way to blind himself permanently.
Though Ryuuken will never truly see it, the resemblance between his son and himself has never been more pronounced than when Uryuu sleeps in front of him now. His face looks like a smaller, paler copy of Ryuuken's, careworn and tense as though he can't find rest even when he sleeps. As if he's never truly rested.
Though he can't see it, he can sense it, guess unconsciously at what his eyes are trying to tell him.
It's such a foolish issue to balk at. What does it matter who Uryuu looks like? And Ryuuken would be just as happy if there was one less monstrously vivid reminder of her to confront his sight. There are too many of those to ever let him forget, or move on, or rest with some semblance of peace.
The child stirs slightly, brow furrowing, before relaxing and falling back to sleep. But he isn't really relaxed at all, he's still uncomfortable with his surroundings, with whatever plays on his mind.
Ryuuken blinks, trying to banish the fleeting thought from his mind, and starts to back away.
And stubbornly, stubbornly does he tell himself, over and again, that Uryuu looks nothing like him.
Momentarily does another car pass, letting a little light in, before the blackness swallows it up again.