Characters: Ryuuken, Uryuu
Summary: Waking up to a baby crying, alone.
Pairings: None
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Timeline: pre-manga
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.
When his wife was still alive, if their son woke up in the night crying there was a seven out of ten chance Ryuuken wouldn't wake up and wouldn't hear it. The next morning, when she would ask him if he had heard anything and he said no, she would roll her eyes and tell him he slept like a corpse. Personally, Ryuuken never appreciated that comparison, even if he didn't say as much to her.
Now, for some reason, if Uryuu woke up in the middle of the night or the dark, empty early morning crying, Ryuuken woke up with him. He was considering investing in sleep aids; whether they would be used on the child or himself was still a matter of debate.
Maybe he was waking up whenever his child started to cry because there was a new, forlorn note in his cries that hadn't been there before in the thirty percent of the time Ryuuken woke up.
Tonight was like many nights (like far too many nights), dark and quiet until it was filled with crying.
Ryuuken woke up, and sighed wearily, recognizing another day in which he'd be going back to work ready to fall over dead before him. Well, he was awake, so there was nothing else for it. He got out of bed, and started for the door.
Uryuu's thin, piercing wails only seemed to grow louder as Ryuuken neared his room (they were right next door, and the walls were thin enough that the volume should have stayed the same regardless of where he was), and to his ears it was like someone dragging their fingernails down across a chalkboard. Uryuu seems to have been taking lessons from my fourth grade teacher. How charming. The sound was more than enough to set his head to pounding.
From the moment he pressed open the door and stepped inside, Ryuuken felt the same coldness sweep over him as there always was.
From the moment he pulled Uryuu into his arms and only half-tried to silence him, all attempts to shush him half-hearted, feeling a tiny, hammering heartbeat against his own, barely awake himself, Ryuuken could feel the same heavy feeling that was always there.
He honestly had no idea what he was doing. Not a clue. Maybe Uryuu cried so much during the night because he'd already picked up on it (Or maybe, some part of his mind that Ryuuken didn't really like murmured, Uryuu just wanted his mother). Maybe the child who had sixteen months on him already knew that the one caring for him didn't have a clue. Somehow, to someone who abhorred losing control of any situation, that thought was more than a little frightening.
Those thin cries, growing more insistent with each passing night, felt ready to bore a hole in Ryuuken's skull. Sometimes, if he held on to him long enough Uryuu would stop crying, but sometimes he wouldn't. He had no idea why the sound of a small child crying should set him ready to do… something, maybe howl, scream, or just take the sleep aids like he'd promised himself and never have to hear him cry again, never have to feel his cries pierce straight to his bones again. Ryuuken hated the way hearing Uryuu cry made him feel, inadequate and inhuman and perfectly helpless. To have no control over a situation wasn't something he relished.
Tonight, at least, Uryuu seemed content to sleep, after regarding him sleepily for a moment with drooping deep blue eyes (eyes just like hers), and not trouble his father any more.
It was hard to remember what it was all for.
He had no idea what to do.