Characters: Uryuu, Ryuuken
Summary: The apple never falls far from the tree.
Pairings: None
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Timeline: None needed
Author's Note: This is a little bit of a stretch but I don't think it's too much a stretch. Hope you all like it; feedback would be appreciated.
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.
Scars left hiding beneath the skin tend to show up later in ways both strange and oddly predictable.
Deep down Uryuu has as his worst fear the prospect that he might end up like his father.
It's not Ryuuken's utter rejection of their heritage that makes Uryuu want to dissociate from him. It's offensive the way Ryuuken scorns the lifestyle their ancestors chose and by extension rejects them altogether, but as far as Uryuu sees, the man dug his own grave and can go lie in it when the time comes.
It's becoming an empty shell he's so afraid of, to be hollowed out and wholly empty. He looks at his father who hardly seems real to him anymore; more two-dimensional than human, with flat and hollow eyes and the complete absence of humanity.
It's hard to face up to the reality of the man Uryuu strove for the love and approval of as a child before realizing he would never have either.
And what's worse is knowing he wasn't always like this and that if it happened to Ryuuken, it can happen to him.
Ryuuken's completely hollowed out, empty as a coffin with no body inside. Uryuu can see it; he's sure others can too.
So Uryuu finds himself holding private funerals for a man who's still alive, mourning when he doesn't even know why he still cares after everything that's happened between them. And he fears becoming like him.
He stands and watches and learns from example, but…
…Don't tell me I'm anything like him.