Characters: Ryuuken, Uryuu, Isshin
Summary: Why he let go of that life.
Pairings: None
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Timeline: Pre-manga
Author's Note: Nothing to report. Just a back story of sorts to other oneshots of mine.
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.

The darkness of the room and the antiseptic stench is particularly jarring, despite Ryuuken's familiarity with such sights and experiences. Maybe it's because this time, he's the patient and not the one who's seeing to the patients.

Ryuuken sighs irritably, staring at the window with its thin plastic blinds as if it's responsible for all of his present troubles. He does possess a habit of assigning blame to inanimate objects. Pale moonlight filters through the blinds, casting milky jail stripes across the hospital bed. His left side still aches, the bandages wound tight around a thick, black-bleeding gash.

"Hey." A heavy hand knocks on the doorframe from the outside in the dissonantly bright, bustling hallway, as Isshin moves into the doorway and blocks out most of the light, uncharacteristically serious. "Man, you are beat up."

To this, Ryuuken frowns and squints, trying to focus on his old friend's face. "How did you—"

"I have sources." Isshin grins viciously. "Not to mention my Spidey senses were tingling."

A moment passes; Ryuuken has to think about his anticipated retort. "…Shut up."

Then comes a booming laugh, in a tone Ryuuken's always hated—reminds him of former days, of when he might have enjoyed such a thing but doesn't anymore—and Isshin's dark eyes bleed out into the shadows of the room. "That's no way to greet a friend who's tracked you down to a tiny little hospital out in the middle of nowhere just to make sure you're still breathing. And besides, that comeback was nothing on the standards you were setting in your adolescence."

Ryuuken lifts the hand not hooked to an IV unit and waves it at Isshin in the way one would attempt to exorcise a bad memory. "Go away. I'm too busy dying to put up with you."

Isshin actually flinches, a spasm on his face. "Ryuuken…" His tone hits ginger notes. "Considering who's company we happen to be in right now, you might want to watch those comments."

Isshin is a huge man, and the figure who steps out from beside him doesn't even reach his knee. A small, pale-as-marble hand clings to Isshin's pant leg, and the eyes that meet Ryuuken's are usually blue, but in the darkness have bled out to seem like black hollows in his face. Ryuuken stares, mouth slightly open.

One word hits the suddenly tense, too still air, a trembling note upon two syllables.

"Father."

Having had a better vantage point to see Ryuuken's reaction, Isshin smiles down reassuringly at Uryuu. "Go wait out in the hall. Your dad and I need to talk."

Reluctantly, the child nods. "Yes, sir."

Finding himself twisting the bed sheets in one hand, Ryuuken grits his teeth as his stomach ties itself into knots. With everything that's happened in the last few hours, he had forgotten entirely about Uryuu. Now he wonders how he could have ever forgotten Uryuu.

Isshin pulls the door shut once Uryuu's retreated into the hall.

"Thank you, Isshin," Ryuuken mutters, drained and suddenly shaken in a way he hadn't been even as he'd walked into the emergency room dripping with blood.

"Don't mention it. How'd this happen, Ryuuken?"

Gone is the mordant sarcasm and sardonic camaraderie; now, seriousness shrouds the room like a mosquito net gleaming with beads of sweat and humidity.

"I would like to plead self-defense, if you don't mind." Dripping scarred bitterness, he paints a succinct picture of how he's ended up injured in a hospital bed. "It was either run and hope I wouldn't end up eaten, or fight back and risk getting eaten anyway."

"Hollow attack?"

"As ever, Isshin, your intellect precedes you."

Isshin's glare speaks volume; Ryuuken doesn't care.

"At any rate, this was a one-time occurrence." He tips his chin downwards. "I don't fight Hollows anymore."

The statement strikes Isshin more keenly than Ryuuken had expected, a sharp wave that goes through him from head to toe and makes Isshin stare, openmouthed at him. "I'll admit," he says slowly, "that you were never one of those people who went looking for a fight. You've never been terribly eager to tangle with a Hollow for fighting's sake. But this is new to me. When did you decide this?"

"You sound like my father; he said the same thing. Please stop."

Seeing (despite what Ryuuken says, he knows that Isshin only pretends to be an idiot—pretending to be an imbecile and actually being one are two entirely different things) that he'll have to dig a little deeper to get an answer of Ryuuken, Isshin keeps going, incredulity never losing momentum. "And you don't regret this at all?"

For the first time, Ryuuken feels uncomfortable under the former Shinigami's scrutiny. "Of course. As much as you regret giving up the life of a Shinigami." The souring of his face tells Ryuuken that he's managed to needle the point home with Isshin. "But this is necessary."

"Why's it necessary?"

A frown mars Ryuuken's narrow face. Isshin, of all people, should be able to understand. "Because," he murmurs, very quietly, "I have a three year old son, who has already lost his mother, and doesn't deserve to lose his father the same way. Because Uryuu doesn't deserve to spend each night alone worrying that I won't come home. I can still remember what it was like for me and my mother, lying awake every night not knowing if my father was dead or alive. I know my mother spent every day until she died worrying about my father. And I don't ever want to subject Uryuu to that. Never again."

The next few moments are spent in silence, in which Ryuuken fully expects Isshin to conform to the behavior he evinced when they first met so many years ago and condemn that position entirely.

Then, finally… "I can…respect that."

Ryuuken surprises himself by realizing that he had been holding his breath.

Isshin isn't done though. "You know, we've known each other for what, fourteen years now? Yeah, fourteen. I can't picture you saying something like this at eighteen."

"Believe me, Isshin." Ryuuken can't keep the bitterness out of his voice. "Neither can I."

Doing his injured friend a favor, Isshin opens the door and ushers Uryuu back in. "I'll be back in the morning," he calls, walking out.

Ryuuken isn't listening to Isshin anymore.

Uryuu is standing in the doorway much as Isshin had before, with one hand braced on the frame. He is giving his father the once-over with eyes that seem black and opaque thanks the absence of light bleaching away all color. It's impossible to tell what emotions flit through the content of his son's eyes, but it is clear to Ryuuken that Uryuu couldn't be more nervous and ill at ease if he tried.

Something will have to be done.

"We're going to be here all night." After a moment to realize it, Ryuuken silently curses that he wasn't quite able to keep the note of exasperation out of his voice when he sees Uryuu flinch. More gently, he adds, "You might as well get up here with me. You need to rest."

Ryuuken wonders if it should bother him that Uryuu shows such relief and surprised joy when he makes these sort of requests. Even though it's so shadowy, Ryuuken can tell that the toddler's face has lit up, even if astonishment taints the sudden burst of happiness.

With some difficulty, Uryuu crawls up the side of the bed. "Come to the other side," Ryuuken tells him when he realizes that Uryuu, on his father's left side, will probably get tangled up in the IV.

"Father?" With a voice made tiny by apprehension and a cracking note, Uryuu hesitates before asking, "How'd you get hurt?" Uryuu lacks even the tiniest hint of a child's lisp, but the wavering quality of his voice and the fact that he barely speaks audibly makes his words indistinct.

It's not so easy to tell his three-year-old son that he was doing something that might have gotten him killed, as it is to tell his grown friend. So Ryuuken chooses not to say so, and instead just chooses to wrap his right arm around Uryuu's shoulders and pull him close. "It's nothing, Uryuu." Somewhat absently, he leans down and kisses the top of his son's head. Then, he pulls the child's glasses off and sets them on the table by the bed. If it's as late as Ryuuken suspects it is, then Uryuu really does need to sleep. "Nothing you need to worry about."