This was a bitch to write. For EaSnowPw, who requested a sequel for "To Forget". Read that to understand this. Hope this is what you were looking for.
Sometimes he wonders just how long it takes for him to forget.
…
At least three times a month, he finds himself being woken rather violently by his terrified boyfriend crying out in his sleep. The orange haired young adult always wakes with the sound of his name on his lips, tears staining his cheeks. It takes much longer than the boy realizes to calm down. The longest amount of time was an hour and a half, once, about a month ago.
It kills him to see his lover so sad, so broken. It is so hard to watch the boy shatter in his arms, and hold the young adult close, knowing that it was the only thing he could do. His name would become a subconscious attempt to calm the distraught boy, muttered over and over again with soft touches and butterfly kisses.
To finish, the episode would always vanish under a fresh wave of tears, these generated not by panic-inducing nightmares and attacks, but out of self-hatred and emotional pain.
He would never dream of telling his lover, but he fears the day he comes home to find the boy gone; drowned or cut or hung or, or, or…
…
The following morning rolls around and he slips quietly from the bed as he always does, making his way down the hall and then the stairs, seeing the others gathered in the living area- it couldn't really be called a room- as they always are on The Mornings After. He shrugs in response to their silent, obvious question, and says, "Average. He'll be alright."
Their relief is palpable. He watches them sag into seats around the coffee table with sighs and other sounds of relief. And, for the most part, the morning is fairly average. They talk and argue, smile and laugh quietly until Ichigo comes downstairs. He watches as the tension builds in light of the boy's appearance, watches his closest friends- who were they kidding anymore? They were family- grow weary and unsure of boundaries. He watches their newest and youngest member loose the light in his eyes.
He'll never say outright, but the old Shinigami used to have light, too.
It was lost long ago.
Watching it happen again is like a knife to the gut, he thinks, noticing the way the others avoid the young teenager without being too obvious. But for Ichigo, who's used to commanding attention with just his hair color, it's more palpable than the sun. The young adult deteriorates before their eyes.
The worst part, he knows, the absolute worst part of it all is that he knows that Ichigo blames them for what's happened. This is the only instance where Ichigo doesn't blame himself, and it's painfully obvious to everyone that it isn't. Ichigo's right in his blame.
As soon as the boy turns away, he closes his eyes and breathes, shoving the fact violently from his mind. He can't fix what's been broken, and it's a hard fact to accept. So he won't. So he won't.
He knows that the other exiles feel the same.
…
A few days after the incident dawns as normally as any other. The birds are outside; cars roll by on the street. The sun rises in the east, and the golden rays, muted by the dirty glass window and rugged, faded old curtains, hit his face at some ungodly hour. Whatever time it is, he knows it's too early to be awake. Groaning, he rolls over, fully intending to curl into Ichigo's side and go back to sleep.
But the bed is cold.
He sits up quickly, a hand flying to his fluffy, tangled hair as he stares around the room. The sheets pool around his waist and he blinks a little in confusion. Everything is in place, except for the small detail of his lack of bedmate.
Huffing, he pulls himself from the arm sheets and shivers, pulling his robe from the bedpost and throwing it on, making his way into the hallway. Hiyori is standing outside the bathroom door, looking distinctly annoyed, and he knows this is as good a mood as she's probably going to be in for the next five hours at least. "You seen Ichigo?" he asks, and she shrugs, banging on the door. That's a no, then.
Someone shouts on the other side of the door, sounding angry and he knows right then and there that this day is not going to be a good one at all. Before Hiyori kicks down the bathroom door, he hightails it down the stairs, casting weary looks behind him. He hopes to see the young adult in the living area, but there is no trace of him.
There's no trace of him at all for the rest of the day, actually. Or for two days after that.
But that point, he's worked himself into such a state that his friends are starting to avoid him. He finds that he doesn't really care.
He's asked just about everyone who might have some idea as to where his lover disappeared to, but none of them seem to be worried.
"It was somewhat common when he was younger," Isshin told him, "for him to disappear for a couple of days wasn't surprising. Masaki used to do the same thing."
Well, he'd thought, storming childishly from the Clinic, that was one of the most unhelpful comments he'd received in all his life.
It didn't help him at all.
Well. Sort of.
It gave him an idea.
He glanced back at the Clinic and made his way home, knowing that the darkening sky meant that it was too late to carry forth his plan.
…
Three days after Ichigo went missing, he wakes up at the sound of an alarm. He sits up and climbs out of bed, pulling on clothes and feeling grateful that he had showered the night before. Grabbing his cell phone, he ducks out of the warehouse and catches a taxi into Karakura proper. He watches the other early risers make their ways to work, and spies a few night dwellers heading home.
Some part of him resents their easy lifestyle. He hates their finite lives and the obsessions that consume them, most of them dying before they're a hundred years old and so afraid of what's beyond. They spend decades searching for one thing, something he knows they won't find until their end. Inwardly sighing, he presses his forehead to the glass of the window, watching the lights blur in the reflections.
Recognizable neighborhood eventually comes to light, and he climbs out of the cab after paying, and the driver doesn't say a word. The car drives off, ruffling his clothes and his hair, but he lets it be.
He's not far from the Clinic. It's a few streets away, but he's exactly where he wants to be. He turns to the house that he's been into only once, and walks up to the door.
Even though she's Ichigo's best friend and by far his closest confidant, he's not all that well aquatinted with Tatsuki. She remains an enigma to him, polite but distant, and everything he knows about the tomboy are things he's learned from Ichigo or from her various achievements. If he's honest, he doesn't care to know her. She seems like a mean, spiteful person, one that he wouldn't get along with. Nevertheless, he's willing to deal with her for Ichigo's sake.
He knocks on the door and waits a moment. He hears footsteps from inside getting louder, and feels faded remnants of Ichigo's reiatsu, no doubt from his previous visits. The door swings inward to reveal Tatsuki sweatpants and a stained, white tank top, her hair in a towel. She looks much more exhausted than he remembers her to be, but other than that she's pretty much the same. "Hirako," she says, no trace of surprise in her voice.
"Tatsuki," he greets. "D'ya mind if I ask you somethin'?"
She blinks at him and says dryly, "You just did."
He resists the urge to snarl at her and instead questions, "Have you seen Ichigo?"
She raises her eyebrows and steps outside, ushering him backward with a wave of her hand, closing the door behind her. She leans against the wall and crosses her arms across her chest, stating, "Of course I've seen him, Hirako," she says, "But the last time was about a week ago. Why?" She narrows her eyes and leans forward. "Did he run off again?" she asks, voice hard.
He throws up his hands, worried and exasperated. "Apparently!" he says in return, running a hand through his hair and looking around without seeing anything. "He's been gone for three days, now," he tells her. "I don't even know what happened or why he decided to leave!"
She shrugs, looking wholly unconcerned suddenly. It makes his heart clench and anger boil, but he forces it down and she speaks, "He'll be back before too much longer," and he stares at her.
"How d'ya know that?" he demands.
"Because I know him," she says indifferently, opening her door and stepping back inside. "He won't leave you suffering too long," she continues, smirking, "though for him to be gone as long as he has been, you must've done something real bad."
And the door closes and locks, and he's left standing alone in front of a house he never wants to see again.
…
Two days pass and Ichigo walks in the door, throwing an overnight bag in the corner of their shared bedroom, causing him to look up from the book he'd been reading. In the instant he sees the orange-haired teenager, all of his worry evaporates. It's like he can breathe again.
"Hey, Shinji," Ichigo says casually, accepting the vice-like hug that he gave the teen.
And so the day goes on. It's almost as if nothing happened at all.
…
Later that night, he's facing the wall with the teenager lying beside him, and he knows the boy is nowhere near asleep. Part of him is glad. He hasn't slept much for the past five days, so he's sure the young adult can survive.
The other part of him feels bad. Regardless of what the boy did, he's still his lover, and he knows the younger doesn't deserve the silent treatment.
He does deserve it though. Somewhat.
The moonlight shines through the cracks in the curtains, casting shadows around the room. There is nothing to see, and everything is normal.
Except for the sudden spike in reiatsu beside him.
Against the part of him that has decided to let the boy suffer, he turns over and asks, "Somethin' wrong? Your reiatsu is fluctuatin'."
The reiatsu spike dissipates to a normal level, and the teenager scowls at him, looking for all the world like he's like nothing more than to hit him. "Nothing's changed, you know," he says, "This breakdown seems to have been different, and I don't know why, and everyone seems to just be content with abandoning me. It's not like this is the first breakdown." He suddenly seems so sad.
He scoffs in return. "You're the one who disappeared for five days to god-knows-where!" he hisses. He's angry and hurt, and the worry comes bubbling back to the surface when he thinks about the past few days. "We searched for ya and ya were gone! No one knew where ya could've gone to."
With an indignant tone, Ichigo returns, "I was at Tatsuki's!"
He moves to retort, but pauses, "Ya were at Tatsuki's?" he asks. His voice is quieter, but still weary, with the anger ready to return any second. He doesn't appreciate being lied to. He recalls the day that he visited and remembers her demeanor. Nothing had told him that his boyfriend had been there other than a faint, faded reiatsu signature.
"I just crashed on her couch for the past five days," Ichigo tells him stiffly, "I've always gone to her when I needed something, and she usually comes to me. Sometimes she goes to Orihime, though that was only after high school started," he finishes, almost like an afterthought. He stares at the teenager, wavering between several emotions at once, unsure. Ichigo scowls at him again and rolls over, pulling the duvet over his shoulder in a clear dismissal.
Annoyed by the teen's behavior, he reaches out and grabs his shoulder, but Ichigo refuses to turn back around. "Damn it, don't do this!" He mutters furiously, tugging harder, still encountering a blatant refusal. "We talked with Tatsuki! She denied you being there!" he hisses, anger returning slowly. Hiyori, too, had gone out and searched, though not nearly as hard as he himself had. It was either Tatsuki or Ichigo who was the liar.
"I asked her to!" Ichigo says, and he stops tugging abruptly, shocked and hurt. "I asked her to because I wanted time away. You all were suffocating me, but I still saw you when you came. I thought you'd seen me," he explains, and turns over finally. There's a fading light in the boy's eyes. "You never help, but it was so bad- I needed…"
His eyes flutter closed. He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, leaning his forehead against the teenager's. What had gone wrong? He places a swift kiss to his lover's mouth, and pulls away slightly. "We're here," he whispers gently, hoping that the redhead would let him know what was wrong. "We're here, too, for ya. Ya can tell me anything, love."
Some part of him wonders if Ichigo believes him.
He's pretty the boy doesn't believe a word of it. And it kills him.
Doesn't Ichigo realize how much he loves him?
"I'm sorry," he whispers to the young adult, not entirely sure what he's apologizing for.
For the conversation they just had?
For the past few days?
For the tension and the avoidance?
For the broken part of him that can never return?
For his part in the war?
For all of it.
He searches for a moment and finds his lover's hand, grabbing hold of it and twining their fingers together, squeezing lightly. A moment passes, and the broken teen squeezes back. Maybe he knows, understands, what he can't say.