I own nothing. I only pray that this doesn't come off as OOC.
Maybe it's nothing, and if it is nothing, he doesn't want to draw attention to it. There's no time for drawing attention to these things when the worst of his suspicions are aroused, and when there might be, he doesn't see them. That's just it; he doesn't see them.
Uryuu would never let on that it bothers him. Come back when you can, he thinks to himself but never quite says, not bitter so much as just a touch wistful (Okay, maybe just a little bitter. Not much, he insists. Not much.). Friendship is hard-won and he wouldn't risk it over something so stupid.
One such as this is used to living his life alone. He retreats to cramped quarters to lick his wounds, settle and sleep off his pain. The pain is still there when he wakes, but he does his best to ignore it. He prepares his own meals, greets the silence washed on the walls as his only company and the gleaming needle as his only love. This is the life of his solitude and the frame is familiar. It's how Uryuu lives when he's alone.
He hadn't expected things to be so similar once he wasn't alone anymore. True, he's glad not to get phone calls in the middle of the night or loud knocks on the plaster door when he doesn't want company. Uryuu is glad for that measure of privacy. And he tells himself that there's nothing wrong, that there's no reason to worry, that any doubt in himself or his friends is self-pity, and nothing else.
Still, it sometimes feels as though he's only called upon when it's absolutely necessary. Just paranoia, Uryuu tells himself, squaring his jaw and ignoring the tugging doubt at the back of his mind. I would know the difference.
It feels… It feels…
Sometimes, Uryuu allows doubt to let him contemplate, and it feels like the balance is a bit off. Dismissed when he is no longer necessary for the fight or able to go on, stared through as though he's made of smoke. He feels as transparent as air in peace time, when he's injured, when he's not needed.
There is no limit as to what Uryuu would do for the people who fill up his life, and what he is willing to give, he would give gladly. Maybe he's too proud to admit it outright, but the fact that he has people to fill up the empty spaces in his life makes his heart sing. Even if he can never quite give voice to it, Uryuu is always ready to be the support, the back-up, any way he's needed. He's always ready to help.
(Come back when you can, he thinks to himself, trying not to clench his hands.)
But there's something else he can't quite give voice to, that sometimes, sometimes, when he isn't spoken to for days on end, Uryuu can't help but wonder if he's been forgotten somewhere in all the messes.
