A/n: Late BD gift for HisagiKirigakure, You've improved so much since we met. Everyone else please check out her work, it's well-written and original. Also I think the 'real Aizen' line came from TheDrunkenWerewolf so credit due and go check out her phenomenal 'Heirverse' series if you like subtext and horror in your fluff.

Warnings: Implied suicidal thoughts/attempt.


Kira. Hisagi had walked by the Third's barracks on his way to the Wolf Den, seen his old friend drilling his new squad. It'd been inspiring to watch. Kira, despite his timid attitude seemed to really be coming into his own as a captain and he was working hard to rebuild his shattered squad. It disgusted him, Kira made it look so fucking easy and Hisagi...well he just wasn't that strong. He groaned and reached for his sake.

He hated Kira in that moment. Kira wouldn't cry himself to sleep that night as Hisagi would. The Gotei were trained to withstand such things and Kira was steel wrapped in velvet despite what some might assume. Not pathetic like him. Kira wouldn't be getting wasted to forget, he was better than that, gentle and strong like all Shinigami aspired to be and almost none actually were.

He sighed at least he was trying unlike some—Momo—people he could mention, still in the hospital, still pining like a bitch. A familiar, vindictive little flash of superiority accompanied the thought and he wondered if he'd ever be able to think about her and not feel it. She was such a victim, poor Momo in love with a traitor, because it wasn't like he ever thought about Tousen. Like every goddamn fucking minute, who'd have thought you could miss a mentor so much. Every night, every training session he remembered something Tousen had taught him.

Hisagi felt a hand on his shoulder and jumped, hand on his sword but looked up to see Kira.

"What!" His conscience firmly pointed out that Kira was being nothing but sensitive and concerned and Hisagi had just slapped him down as Gin always had in the past. Hisagi took another shot and ignored it, he was listening to Kazeshini tonight. Besides Kira was bothering him not the other way around.

"Just wondering how you were." Kira sat on the stool next to him.

Hisagi tried to come up with a properly biting response and settled on, "How the fuck ya' think?"

Kira gave him a pitying smile and Hisagi almost punched him.

"Sorry dumb question. I just thought that maybe we could catch up it's been a while."

"Aren't ya' on duty s'like two ina afternoon."

Kira gave Hisagi a meaningful look that he had neither the desire nor capacity to decipher. "It's one o'clock and I'm on lunch."

"G'way."

Kira ignored him and ordered a chicken sandwich.

"Fuck. Off," Hisagi tried again with precise enunciation .

Kira sighed. "Please talk to me."

Hisagi groaned and stared silently down at the deeply scarred bar.

"What do you want me to say."

"Whatever's on your mind."

Hisagi snorted in derision.

"Okay point taken, but seriously it's been months since we just shot the shit."

"There's nothing to say. Besides I've been busy, we both have."

Kira laughed bitterly. "Yeah you're real busy."

"You know what I mean."

Kira sighed. "Yeah. God this is rough."

Hisagi blinked.

"Gin always said I was too soft. I want to prove him wrong but..." he trailed off with tears in his eyes.

"Gin was a fucking sadist besides you've handled it better than me," Hisagi admitted and took another drink.

Kira laughed weakly. "You've been the consummate shinigami, I'm a wreck."

Hisagi smiled though he felt like kicking himself for not seeing that Kira'd been struggling. "Makes two of us."

Kira smiled and clapped him on the shoulder. "Three."

"Momo can fuck herself!" Hisagi's lips raised in a snarl.

Kira's mouth fell open. "What the hell man."

"Come on. Are you really going to pretend she's an innocent victim in all this?"

"That's the whisky talking. She didn't asked to be stab."

"Yeah and it doesn't take this long for stab wounds to heal."

Kira gasped. "You don't mean that."

Hisagi signaled for a refill, laughing. "Everybody knows why the fourth is keeping her they're all just too polite to say it."

"And you what? Want a cookie for being a drunk dick?"

Hisagi frowned then shrugged, rage boiled inside him at the mere thought of her lounging in that sterile ward, waited on hand and foot, high on whatever psych drugs Mayuri had cooked up to who knew what effect. How easy it must be for her, no job to go to, no squad to worry about, no appearances to keep up. Her weakness on display for everyone to nurse away, a little bird with a broken wing.

"That bitch loves him even after..." He looked down and took a swig of his drink.

Kira sighed. "She loves the captain she knew, not the real Aizen."

Hisagi snorted. "You don't resent her at all?"

He shook his head. "I pity her...and you."

A wave of rage washed away Hisagi's instant disgust. He glared at Kira or tried to. he seemed to shift and blur every time Hisagi blinked.

"She doesn't deserve it!"

"I had it easy, Gin was an ass but you two—"

"Don't compare me to her!"

"God..." He closed his eyes and shook his head. "Have you even visited her?"

"Fuck no!"

Kira rose his lip curled in disgust and laid cash on the bar. "Sober up man."

Hisagi glared after him as he walked out

X

The nurse led Hisagi into a sterile white room and locked the door behind him. He resisted the urge to shiver, looking everywhere but at the only furniture in the room. Finally he let his eyes settle on the white bed, then on the emaciated child that sat on it. That was what Momo looked like, not a fearsome shinigami or even a dutiful lieutenant but a child. Deep bags hung under her eyes, her hair hung loose to her shoulders and it struck him that perhaps Aizen hadn't failed to kill her after all.

He forced himself to approach her. "Hey Momo."

"Hey," she replied quietly, avoiding his eyes.

"So...enjoying your vacation?"

Momo looked up at him then and a ghost of a smile touched her lips. She patted the bed next her and the sheets crinkled. Paper. The thought of doing so turned his stomach but he accepted her invitation and sat down.

"The food's good."

Hisagi raised an eyebrow, "Really?"

For a moment he wasn't sure she'd answer but finally she said, "Yeah, it's good...they treat me very well."

He thought of a dozen vicious things to say but couldn't bring himself to do it. She wasn't a shinigami anymore, not in any real sense and he wasn't one to kick someone who couldn't fight back. In the end he just nodded.

She shrieked and shoved him, it was shockingly weak and even caught by surprise it barely moved him.

"Goawaygoawaygoaway!"

He stood up and backed away a bit, stunned.

"Just leave me alone."

"What'd I do?" he asked too confused to be angry.

"I th-thought you were different." Tears rolled down her pale face.

"Different?"

"Honest! Everyone does their little pilgrimage to poor little Momo. Be gentle, don't say the wrong thing. But they hate me." She swiped at her face and he saw her left wrist was bandaged.

He felt like shit, how could he have been angry at this broken thing? "They don't hate you Momo."

She sniffed angrily. "They should! You think I don't know why I'm here? Aizen's little slut, she'll go running back to him with all our battle plans. I thought you were different!"

"Momo...Look you made a mistake...I made a mistake too trusting Tousen. All you..." His throat tightened. "All you can do is learn from it."

"I don't deserve to. Look at all the people Aizen killed and I...I still love him," she said sobbing.

His hatred flooded back but he realized that he didn't hate Momo, he hated that she still cared for Aizen and that he still cared for Tousen albeit in a different way. His throat closed.

"It's like this roof and it protects you from everything but it's supported by pillars and the pillars break and the roof falls on you and you're just buried in the rubble," she spoke in a rush, half sobbing, then looked up at him like she was awaiting a death sentence.

A tear fell despite his best efforts to stop it. "I understand."