Title: Down In The Sewers
Rating: T
Genres: Angst, Hurt/Comfort
This story contains: references to child prostitution
Characters: Hisagi Shuuhei, Ayasegawa Yumichika
Word count: 1202

Summary: There's so little Shuuhei can do, but he can't stop doing it, even if the futility of it all kills him inside.

A/N: This was written for the Hurt/Comfort Bingo challenge on LJ. The prompt was "rent boys/girls".

Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach nor its characters which all belong to Kubo Tite, and I am making no money from writing this fic.

Down In The Sewers

Shuuhei's heart was heavy as he left the building in the middle of the night; it always was on these evenings. He did as much as he could, and yet it amounted to so little in the end. He was only one man - one weak, powerless man; how could he fight against an entire system? He was no noble to have the ear of the Council 46. He was not even a captain who could petition the help of the Gotei 13. He was just a former Rukongai street rat trying to prevent other, younger rats, from drowning in the sea of despair which had nearly swallowed him once.

He could not even remove them from their place; all he could do was offer them the illusion of a better life once every few weeks. Sometimes he wondered, when the immensity of the situation overwhelmed him in the middle of the night, whether he was not actually making their life harder by letting them glimpse the light and then letting it be snatched away from them again so quickly. Maybe it would be easier for them if they could resign themselves to that life?

But no! No, he could not do that, and so he kept coming here, week after week, with his meager offerings, for just an hour or two. He could never afford more, but they said it was better than nothing, and he desperately needed to believe it - especially when he did not leave the place fast enough, and got to meet the next person to visit them. At least, he had given them a time of respite, right?

"I'm disappointed." The sharp tenor voice was dripping with venom and Shuuhei's hand reflexively flew to Kazeshini's hilt as he turned around to face his unexpected visitor. He had not felt as much as a flicker of reiatsu and this unsettled him almost more than the contempt on Ayasegawa's face as the fifth seat stepped into the moonlight.

"What do you want?" Shuuhei was not up to mind games - not tonight, definitely not tonight. He desperately needed to be alone with his roiling emotions, with his pain and his anguish - with his weakness, something that Ayasegawa did not understand.

Ayasegawa sneered. "I wanted to know how you could always be broke, even with a lieutenant's pay. I must admit I did not expect this" - he vaguely indicated the street around them with his hand - "from you."

Shuuhei frowned. "It's not what you think."

Ayasegawa's tone turned harsh as he spat, "Ha! You enter a house, come back out with two rent kids, one on each arm, and take them to an inn for a couple of hours. What else is it supposed to be, except precisely what it looks like?"

Shuuhei scowled as a terrible, agonising anger bubbled deep inside his chest. "How is this any of your business, Ayasegawa-goseki?" Even if the idiot were right, Shuuhei would still - unfortunately - not be breaking any rule or law, so why did the fifth seat even care?

"It's not." Ayasegawa was back to his stand-offish self as he explained calmly, "I just can't believe I ever thought of you as a good guy. You disgust me." He turned around and was about to take off in a flash of shunpo when Shuuhei grabbed him by the arm.

"I told you: it's not what you think." Shuuhei kept his voice low and steady, though he felt like screaming inside. This was beyond unfair, and the thought of being mistaken for one of them was tearing his soul apart.

"All right!" Ayasegawa was lashing out again. He jerked his arm free and then fixed Shuuhei with a glare which could have melted metal. "Then by all means, Hisagi-fukutaichou, do tell me what you do with rent kids, in a hotel room, late at night." His voice was full of anger and his reiatsu was rippling with animosity, and yet Shuuhei could have sworn that he could also see something begging him from deep within the large purple eyes - pleading with him to prove him wrong, to clear that awful new impression Ayasegawa had of Shuuhei.

Shuuhei could do no more than whisper as he explained, "I feed them a good meal, and then we play cards and we talk." His heart fell as a stunned disbelief replaced the wrath on the other man's face. His voice shook as he forced himself to add, "Sometimes I give them candy, or new clothes", and then it trailed away as he finished, "and they take turn too, so it's not always the same ones..." He had lost, he knew it; Ayasegawa was still too shocked to react, but any time now he would burst into incredulous laughter, and Shuuhei realised he did not want to see that - he could not see that. This time, he was the one who turned around and prepared to flee, with an awful, bitter taste in his mouth.

"You beg for Oomaeda's scraps so you can feed rent kids?" Ayasegawa's frighteningly flat voice stopped Shuuhei long enough for him to shrug.

"Yeah. Stupid, I know."

"... Why?"

Shuuhei turned back to face the other man. How could he explain? For what felt like an eternity, he stared into the large purple eyes. How could he find the words to explain himself to this man? How did one share such a deeply hidden pain? He had never talked about it; he had only ever acted on it. "I..." I was one of them. He could not say it; he stopped, and tried again. "They..." They need to know there is hope for a better life, even for them. No, this would not come either. Nothing would come, and he was left to stare helplessly at Ayasegawa, who was staring back with a strange expression on his face.

"Confronting the ghostly nightmares of the past head on..." Shuuhei staggered as though the new softness in Ayasegawa's voice had punched him in the guts. His vision blurred as a small, sad smile appeared on the other man's lips. "But only when it can benefit others, as always." He felt tears rolling down his cheeks when Ayasegawa walked up to him and slowly traced the three parallel lines of his facial scars with his calloused fingertips. "Hisagi Shuuhei, who will sacrifice everything to help others, but doesn't know how to take care of himself." And then the purple eyes were locked onto his again, and Shuuhei's knees buckled as a wave of compassion rolled over him. He felt thin arms wrap around his shoulders, and gratefully hid his face in the sheet of soft black hair. He was crying convulsively now, but he knew that here, in the circle of these arms, he was safe to do so; here, he could let go of his adult strength and allow the anguish which had so often ripped through his heart as a child to flow freely - and right now, this was all he asked for.

Tomorrow he would go back to the insurmountable task of changing the world, but tonight he would just cry his helpless frustration away.

xx The End xx