C/W - same self-harm with Gin and his arms.
Other Warning this chapter - this hasn't been betaread! This means I edited it myself. Which means it got longer instead of shorter...and there are probably still a bunch of problems.
But! it's here now! it's massively late going by my one chapter a month schedule... Getting a comment gave me enough motivation to stop using busy betareaders as an excuse not to work on this! Thank you! I figured posting another chapter was the best response lol. even if it's not betaread...

I hope you enjoy Shunsui's first POV chapter!

Brats - Gin's thoughts
*Weaklings* - Other Voice

- Some morning Shunsui's supposed to be working, June, 1886 - Kyouraku Estate, Seireitei -

"Kyouraku-sama."

Shunsui waved one last farewell to his guests before turning to Mari. "I thought we agreed you were going to stop calling me that," he said with a pout, following as the small woman bowed and gestured down the hallway. Every inch of her was strict, perfect poise and as always, he had to restrain himself from straightening out of his own slouch, feeling the subtle reprimand from her more strongly than any harsh lectures.

"You agreed, sir," Mari corrected in a quiet murmur. "More importantly, you have new guests waiting." Her eyes cut over to him as they passed into an unoccupied hallway, any signs of demure submission disappearing. "I took the liberty of not serving them tea with their refreshments while they waited for you to finish with your other guests, I do hope you'll forgive me." There was not an inch of apology in her expression.

Shunsui winced, rubbing at his neck. That could only mean Saigo then and not in one of his better moods. And if there was someone with him, it could only be Gin.

He wanted to think that this was a good thing—he had a pretty good track record of cheering Saigo up, and his visits were enjoyable seven times out of ten; and a visit from Gin had slowly started to become less likely to mean bad news, blood, and lectures from Mari. But with the way things had been going...

He hadn't seen either of them for several months. Only the missing boxes of fruit from the Kyouraku's exotic orchard that he'd set aside for Saigo had let him know the man had come by at all. And Mari had reported that Gin had stopped by once two weeks ago, asked if Saigo had been by, then dined and dashed—just like he'd been doing for months. 'Worn down and distracted,' Mari had said this last time, silently judging Shunsui for not chasing Gin down.

He hadn't thought much of it with Saigo—he waltzed in and out of their lives whenever it suited him, sometimes disappearing for years, even decades at a time. And Gin, even though he had been coming by roughly every two weeks since the first time he'd tasted Mari's cooking, was chronically busy with his projects. The timing simply didn't always work out.

But here they were, both of them showing up out of the blue. Together.

He tried to keep his optimism in the face of Mari's pessimism: "It can't be that bad? Did they say anything?"

"Gin-kun was subdued, but greeted me as usual," Mari reported. It seemed neutral until her eyes narrowed as she switched subjects. "Saigo-sama was rearranging the decorations—that was already a half hour ago."

He winced again. Saigo... Although Gin might also be up to trouble, Mari always gave him a free pass—Shunsui had yet to figure out what Gin was bribing her with. "Surely we have a tea set from someone we don't like we can spare."

Her sharp gaze turned on Shunsui, inescapable. "He has already gone through the dozen sets we 'could spare'—you assured me I did not need to procure more for his 'use.'"

Saigo had admittedly given her reason to be biased, Shunsui admitted and mourned his past decisions. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but he wished he'd thought of needing to placate her now, instead of then.

"Saigo wouldn't dare upset you by breaking the decorations," he tried, but couldn't say it with any confidence. When his effort only got him a 'hmph,' he turned to pleading: "Are you sure we don't have one set left—perhaps the one from—"

She held up an imperious hand, and Shunsui cut off immediately.

Watching her turn away with full expectation of being obeyed, he couldn't help but proudly remember how much she'd grown from the quiet, timid little girl that hadn't dared to voice her opinions to anyone. "I can't thank you enough, Mari-chan—" he started as she came back with a full serving tray—that included a tea set for eight he didn't recognize.

"You cannot," Mari agreed, pushing the tray into his hands in a clear sign that she had no intention of dealing with the matter further. "But you can start by making sure Saigo-sama keeps his hands off the decorations."

"Yes, ma'am," he agreed fondly.

Shunsui approached the far end of his wing of the estate with mild apprehension and didn't announce himself as he slowly opened the sliding doors to the sitting room. He held the tray from Mari in front of him as a peace offering, just in case; neither of them were known for patiently and peacefully waiting around.

Still, he honestly wasn't sure what he'd been expecting when he peeked in, scanning the room for—blood and mayhem, perhaps? Shattered statuettes and pottery, or scattered first aid supplies around a makeshift triage table? He chided himself—Mari would have found an acceptable excuse to interrupt his meeting if Gin was injured again.

Defying all expectations, he found the two of them silently sitting in seiza around the kotatsu. There was a distinct space between them—neither acknowledging the presence of the other, as if they'd each been waiting the whole time alone.

They both seemed weary and on edge and he didn't break the silence as he approached slowly, feeling off kilter confronted with this strange new dynamic.

When he noticed that Gin had started to catch up to Saigo in height, it only underlined how long it had been since he'd seen the two of them together. How long had it been? A year? It had never occurred to him that a disagreement was behind their staggered, lessening visits—they'd meshed so well from day one. He'd turned around one day to find that Gin was simply there, a baffling instant kinship with thick layers of trust between them.

An even closer look and he was sure that this was a conversation he dearly didn't want to have.

Gin seemed to be struggling—though whether to keep up a smiling facade of 'just peachy,' or to restrain himself from using it, Shunsui couldn't be sure. His reiatsu was pulled in tight under a thick mask—but it wasn't enough to hide that his reiryoku levels were even more hideously low than usual. Shunsui didn't think he was imagining that he was closer to gaunt than lean with an unhealthy pallor rather than simply pale.

Underscoring Gin's clear unease, he was still in the simple yukata he wore to blend in in the Rukongai—no intention on staying in Seireitei past this conversation then and thus no need to change.

In contrast, not even trying to pretend everything was per the norm, Saigo's face was completely blank, eyes sharp and clear as emeralds. The elaborate kimono he was wearing wasn't one Shunsui was familiar with, black with a dragon picked out with shimmering gold and silver threads. A neutral choice—not the proclamation of challenge of the blue, winter themed one, or the nostalgia and fond memories of the purple one with a moonlit pond, or any other kimono somewhere in between. Was he asking for a clean slate to start this confrontation-because it was clearly a confrontation—or offering one as an insult?

Neither of them said anything or moved as he pondered while joining them at the kotatsu.

Until he set the tray down that is—extra cups closer to Saigo—and realized that the tray Mari had left was conspicuously closer to Gin than Saigo. Confirming his suspicion, Gin immediately set the old tray aside, even as he reached out and inched the new tray towards himself...taking Saigo's favorite fruits out of reach.

Saigo watched them go with a scowl, before stubbornly looking away.

Thus turning the scowl on Shunsui.

Shunsui cleared his throat, steepling his hands in front of him in a paltry defense. He was glad he'd missed it if this was how they'd spent the last year. Surely they didn't think he could help them with that?

"You have bad news," he prompted, trying to be optimistic, and already feeling weary of the whole encounter. "Should I send a message to Jyuuishiro?"

"It would have been best if he could join us," Saigo said, attempting to contort his scowl into a neutral expression. "It is unfortunate he's not feeling well. After our meeting you can fill him in when you feel is best."

Not a personal matter then... Jyuuishiro would have been the first one to assert that this last 'attack' barely even qualified as one—he hadn't even needed to tell anyone. But as usual, Saigo knew anyway—and the issue was with him, not Jyuu. That Saigo wanted Jyuu there, but had come anyway instead of waiting until he recovered, didn't say good things about the conversation.

He would have known if Gin's work had been discovered, though, and anything else had to be manageable, so he nodded. "I'm listening."

Gin and Saigo shared a look, fairly radiating unease and tension. A thud from under the table ended the staredown.

Gin cleared his throat, his smile starting to look more like a grimace. "Ya know...we've mentioned a few murders in the Alley to ya before," he started, but when he opened his mouth to continue, nothing came out.

The silence grew as Shunsui watched the two of them alternate between flicking glances at him and sending glares at one another. Now he definitely wished they were only here about a petty argument—even a not so petty one.

Murder was synonymous with death in the Rukongai, not even worth mentioning. Except when it was a shinigami officer that was responsible. It was less rare than he'd like and near impossible for him or Jyuuishiro to do anything more about outside their own divisions. It was difficult even in their own, but if they knew about it, they could at least do something.

And that was the elephant in the room, Gin's priorities—his kids—everything he'd started, was in West, on the opposite side of the Rukongai from Shunsui and Jyuuishiro's divisions.

Gin couldn't—wouldn't—dig up roots and move, and Shunsui and Jyuuishiro were prevented from interfering outside their jurisdictions by an endless chasm of bureaucracy and politics.

They'd tested the waters a few times early on, but last October stood out in his mind as the last night the topic had come up. It hadn't taken long to put together the facts that Gin was both not one to let things go and all but belonged in the Onmitsukidou with his budding skill set to get 'vigilante justice.' Gin had stopped even vaguely referencing murders and Shunsui had quietly decided to never confirm his 'suspicions.'

With a sinking feeling, Shunsui realized that there was as much tension in the room pending his reaction as there was between Gin and Saigo. Maybe more. Gin's foreign expression was because of him, his potential reaction—plausible deniability didn't work quite as well when they openly addressed it, after all.

He held his fist to his mouth and cleared his throat again. "I remember."

Gin folded his hands into the sleeves of his haori and Shunsui could almost smell the blood already. And Gin's reiatsu, already subdued and masked even lower than usual, pulled in even further.

Another dull thud and Gin found his voice again after a short spike of hostility directed at Saigo: "Plus aren't the only ones being murdered." His face stayed directed at the table instead of Shunsui.

There was another long silence as they all dwelled on the implications.

Shunsui scrubbed a hand over his face and decided to assume that Gin wasn't attempting to turn himself over for justice. The two of them had to be telling him because they thought shinigami victims would mean Seireitei would actually have to act.

Other possibilities immediately sprang to mind and his gaze narrowed on Saigo. It was far too soon for him to be making a move, but he wasn't supposed to be getting up to anything else either.

Saigo only met his gaze with equal intensity and jerked his head towards Gin in a dark challenge: could he ignore Gin coming to him for help?

It would pain Shunsui greatly, but the steel around his heart went up with depressing ease, distancing him from the distress Gin was obviously under. He would hear him out, do his best to protect him from the fallout, then explain Saigo's little habit—that Gin didn't have to pay the price for getting involved the way they had.

"The same killers?" Shunsui finally said into the silence. He immediately wanted to take back his phrasing and the coldness in his voice as Gin's shoulders tensed up, but didn't give an outward sign.

"Sometimes," Gin said, knuckles visibly dragging down his arms under his sleeves. "It's hard to keep track of them all."

That made Shunsui straighten, hand slowly falling back to the table. "How many are we talking about?" How big of a conspiracy was Saigo trying to sell him?

This time it was Gin that elbowed Saigo, not bothering to hide it under the table, and Saigo who relented. With clear distaste, he turned and lifted a bundle that clattered and clinked.

Gin made an aborted gesture towards the untouched serving tray, but Shunsui moved faster. Adding literal blood stained hands to the conversation wouldn't help anything.

Saigo slid the lumpy bundle across the table, an innocuous cloth rolled around the contents. It wasn't enough to disguise the distinct sound of weapons knocking together—but the bundle was altogether too short for swords.

With dread, Shunsui pulled the bundle open, just enough to see—to count. He covered it back up without looking at the details. Covered his face with his hands. Over half a dozen broken hilts, zanpakutou, all of them.

He had never believed that some souls—noble or not, officer or not—were worth more. Yet he couldn't deny that he'd become somewhat inured to the inevitable deaths of plus souls in the Rukongai. There was just something far more tangible about zanpakutou; the way the life went out of them when they broke in a dark reflection of their owners' deaths.

He looked up, questions and accusations on his lips, but they died there.

Saigo, of course, was antsy and watchful, with brazen challenge written all over his face even as his fingers tapped restlessly at the table. The last time Saigo had played this game hadn't gone well at all. For anybody.

It was Gin that stilled Shunsui's tongue—completely still, watching him like a hawk and ready to snap and bolt at a moment's notice.

Like Shunsui was an enemy Gin needed to be afraid of.

He'd known Gin was stressed, but the topic was delicate—things would have to change, but he'd never turn on him, abandon him. After everything, Gin still didn't think—

It wasn't entirely unfounded, Shunsui temporized, scrubbing another hand over his face. How many officers had Gin killed in retribution for crimes Seireitei didn't acknowledge? Only the one, or was it only the one team? More? How could Shunsui know that their blades weren't included with the others? He should have brought Gin in for such crimes instead of darkly accepting the officers in question had finally met the consequences of their actions. There were crimes that he would bring Gin to justice for—even Jyuuishiro for. No matter the pain it would cause him, he could never accept any soul having blanket immunity.

But no. Even if he didn't think he had some knowledge of Gin's character and didn't believe he wouldn't go on an unjustified killing spree, they had brought this to him because Gin had taken out some of the killers—but souls were still dying. Over a dozen at least, including the plus.

Gin couldn't kill all the perpetrators himself, that was why he was here. He was on the verge of snapping, already pulled in too many directions.

He had come here, to the home of someone that had the legal right to arrest or execute him on the spot. Gin hadn't just been grounding himself, he'd been restraining himself with blood and pain. Had forced himself to stay and wait. Even though he must have known that the open sliding doors leading out into the garden could only offer the pretense of an escape route if Shunsui turned on him.

Maybe Gin was the perfect card to play to get Shunsui involved in one of Saigo's fool schemes, because, "Are these the only ones you found?" was what came out in the end instead of recriminations for trying this game again.

Gin shrank back a little, knuckles becoming ever more prominent under his sleeves, not answering.

Answer enough in itself.

There was a crack in Shunsui's steel armor. He wanted to offer to heal Gin's arms, bandage them, even just offer to twine their reiatsu, but Gin was more likely to bolt or try to stab him than let him come any closer right now. If he could take even one burden off of Gin's shoulders, if Gin would let him...

"When...what kind of time-frame are we talking about here?"

"Since April for these," Saigo answered when Gin didn't speak up. There was dark triumph in his gaze, the bloody bastard. Saigo never understood how he could be so wrong even when he was right.

Shunsui closed his eyes a moment, restraining his temper. "Where were they found?"

Saigo shrugged, tension falling more with Shunsui's every question. "Mostly West, some nearby from North, South."

Half a dozen since April at least, more before that, in three quadrants—not counting the plus deaths that Gin barely hinted at. That wasn't just the occasional fight gotten out of hand or small-scale political maneuvering, nor some details Saigo could string together to look incriminating.

So Shunsui reluctantly pulled back the cloth from the bundle and looked over the hilt of each zanpakutou. Went a step farther when he couldn't find what he was looking for and dismantled them completely so he could examine the tsuba.

He set the last one down slowly, heart heavy. There wasn't a single engraved name or Family crest between them. "None of these were noble officers." The coincidence was...he entertained one last doubt, that Saigo could have simply gathered the hilts left by hollow attacks, then lied to Gin. It would be so much easier. Unlikely as it was considering this was Gin, he kept it in the back of his mind as an option.

Shaking his head, he picked up the last hilt and started reassembly. After a moment Saigo joined him, satisfaction replaced by somber respect. It reminded him all over again that Saigo, while rarely if ever the solution, wasn't the enemy, putting out his temper and managing to make his heart even heavier.

Gin's torn expression caught his eye and Shunsui stopped a moment to push the tray over with its bowl of water and cloth.

It only took Gin a moment to clean most of the blood off his hands and the next several minutes were spent in silence as they all put the broken hilts back together.

The enormity of the task in front of Shunsui was like a physical weight in the silence. They lost so many of the lower ranks on a regular basis, where did they start looking for foul play? His mind instinctively rebelled at the thought that there might have been foul play in his own division, under his own nose.

Deaths were always taken seriously, efforts made to recover the body and zanpakutou, to find out what had gone wrong in hopes of preventing similar incidents. The system was hardly fool-proof, Shunsui knew, but at least in Jyuuishiro's division and his own, sudden promotions due to deaths, or where there was prior antagonism, were investigated, not slid under the carpet.

It would be easy to label this a problem of other divisions, especially in West. Rukongan officers struggled far more for equal consideration in Tenth; and the dead were dismissed as weak and forgotten in Eleventh.

It would be easier, but there was a dark, cynical voice whispering in the back of his mind that he already knew how many gaps in the system there were. Even in Yama-jii's, straddling West and North, and Shinji's, just over the border in South—even in Jyuuishiro's division and his own.

Their chronic understaffing since the war was easy to take advantage of; the officers first on scene to confirm the deaths and investigate weren't always experienced enough to spot the signs of foul play or weren't as free of bias as necessary; the higher level, more experienced—more vetted—Onmitsukidou Investigators were only guaranteed if foul play was suspected—or where important Families were hollering for a full investigation into exactly what had gone wrong.

"The main issue will be how sloppy our killers are," Shunsui said, breaking the silence as he set down the last zanpakutou. He had the owners of these zanpakutou to start with, but a significant barrier largely prevented his prying into other Divisions' affairs. "If there's nothing to find..."

What scale of result was Gin expecting? How disappointed would he be if whatever he and Jyuuishiro could do didn't match up with whatever 'proper' retribution Saigo had pushed for?

In spite of his fears, the tension fell away from Gin and he smiled a real smile, not the meaningless mask of one, for the first time that night. "But you'll look," Gin said, halfway between a statement and a question.

Shunsui huffed, and, refusing to look at Saigo, he said, "Of course." As incongruous as the smile was Shunsui's relief at seeing it. Somehow, it felt as though he'd been closer to losing Gin just then than when Gin had been smiling on the equivalent of an operating table, close to death.

Now he could gesture Gin over, knowing from experience Gin would leave with his arms untreated if Shunsui let him, and testing for damage done.

Gin came over without hesitation, offering his arms up without a fight, letting Shunsui keep the dubious honor of being Gin's go-to-healer for similar wounds. Jyuuishiro may have been far more skilled in kaidou, but it was Shunsui that could do so while navigating Gin's prickly pride.

And Gin took the opportunity to let his reiatsu swirl away from its confines and tug at Shunsui's, thanking and double checking his sincerity at the same time.

Shunsui gave him the assurance freely, long used to it. "The origin of a reported crime should never blind the investigators to the real criminals. The less shady people muddying up the water the better," he added with an absentminded smirk. He needed his focus to keep the pain and sadness out of his voice and reiatsu as he noticed how drained Gin was—even more than he'd thought—and felt how deep the furrows Gin had dug into his skin were.

Every time he thought they got a little more of Gin's trust, something like this would come up and remind him how much further they had to go.

Although, now that this was out in the open... "This does change things, you realize?" Shunsui asked, careful to keep his grip on Gin's arm loose. Part of showing Gin they were trustworthy was telling him what that meant, where the lines were. It certainly didn't mean a blank cheque.

Gin licked his lips, a stream of cold threading through his reiatsu for just a moment. It was hesitant, anxious, defensive.

Shunsui only wrapped his reiatsu around Gin like a blanket like he always did in response. Let him feel that Shunsui wasn't about to go back on his implicit acceptance. He was no stranger to the darkness in the world, the impossible moral choices life forced on souls.

Insidious doubt rose in his mind. Had he fallen for the propaganda of his city? That his birth, that earning his Captaincy gave him the impunity to be judge, jury, and executioner with no oversight? That anyone else acting in such a way was unacceptable? What more right did he have than Gin to make those choices? But the doubt was a familiar one, no matter how long it had been, and he knew how to beat it. His soul had already been blackened; it was their job, his job, to pay the price so that Gin didn't have to. This wasn't meant to be Gin's burden.

While he had finished his inner debate, Gin had finished his, the cold retreating from his reiatsu.

"I knew that going into this," Gin murmured, his reiatsu reflecting the certainty and resolve—the sincerity.

They didn't go into specifics, but that was how they did things. That was the Game.

He let his pleasure and fondness suffuse the reiatsu wrapping around Gin, taking it as a promise Gin was beholden to.

A loud clatter made them both look over to Saigo.

The man had appropriated the tray of snacks, dropping it on the table with a pointed look. A doomed teacup in one hand, and helping himself to the arrangement of fresh fruit with the other, Saigo had a stubborn look, daring them to exclude him further. "Tch. A child could have tried to report that officially and they would've been cut down where they stood. Questioning the perfection of Seireitei? Hah."

"You do it all the time," Shunsui said, forcibly keeping his reiatsu and voice light. Forcibly keeping the creeping doubt that Saigo had somehow created the problem where Gin couldn't sense it.

His kaidou faltering snagged his attention back to Gin's arms, and he focused on putting a bit more oomph into the reiatsu infusion. Saigo said something in reply but he didn't pay it any mind until he finally forced the kaidou to start doing what he wanted.

"I'll get on this immediately, let you know if I've found anything as soon as possible," Shunsui said, not bothering to pretend he'd been listening when Saigo looked at him expectantly.

"It'll be there if you look for it," Gin told him, not looking up from where he was still focused on Shunsui's kaidou.

Even Saigo raised a brow at that; Gin couldn't have realized how certain he'd sounded, distracted as he was. What else did he know that even Saigo didn't? He wasn't exactly an optimist. It added another point in his mind for Gin genuinely being the source of the information, at least.

"Any names, dates, or descriptions you have would be helpful," Shunsui prompted, hoping that meant he had more than just the zanpakutou. "And...regarding investigations into...certain suspicious deaths we don't want looked at too closely—"

"There's nothing to find," Saigo announced. He raised a brow in challenge to Shunsui's unimpressed expression. "Obviously I made sure of that first."

Shunsui stared Saigo down to make a point, but he didn't doubt how protective Saigo was of Gin, if nothing else. His gaze turned to Saigo's shoulder for a moment. "Well, if you're sure, then..."

An hour later, they had scribbled out a list of vague details for Shunsui and Jyuuishiro to work with, exchanged assurance of sharing any new information, and caught up on other matters.

And Gin was making excuses to leave on his way out the door; always something to do, work upon extra work never ending.

Shunsui didn't try to protest, knowing Gin disliked hanging around after connecting. Instead, he asked Gin to start coming by regularly again. When he hesitated, Shunsui nonchalantly took another drink of tea and idly said, "I'll tell Jyuuishiro to expect you next week, shall I?"

Gin's brow twitched at the threat and Shunsui knew he was going to pay for that. Still, Gin gave him a cheerful promise before disappearing and that was what mattered. The kid should have known there was no way they weren't going to interfere when he was that worn down. They'd clearly been too lax as it was, thinking Saigo would draw the line, at least keep an eye on Gin's health after that first time Gin disastrously ignored all his limits.

Left in the silence with just the two of them, that and a dozen other questions and accusations come to mind.

He attempted to sort out the ones likely to start a fight, but didn't intend to drop the subject until he had a few assurances.

They all fell to the wayside as he turned back to find Saigo had drooped. His eyes had lost most of their bright intensity, fading to a dull jade green, staring almost passively at Shunsui.

Shunsui quietly walked back over to the kotatsu, choosing to sit next to him rather than across. Sometimes not being in direct eyesight of one another kept things calmer.

"Have you two been fighting the whole year?"

Saigo heaved a sigh, running his hand over his head. "Off and on. Sometimes it seems everything is normal and great and sometimes..."

"I'm surprised you haven't left yet. I don't think I've ever seen you this exhausted." Because the man always left when things got too troublesome, when they required too much effort.

Saigo glanced at him then away. He rolled his cup between his palms in a gesture Shunsui knew meant he was embarrassed. Losing focus, his gaze fell back to the table. "That wasn't the deal."

Irritation broke through Shunsui's empathy. So all this time it had been his fault? He could have made Saigo stick around if he'd just made the right deal? "And dragging him into your plots was?"

A flash of life returned to Saigo's eyes, enough for a proper glare. "So I should have left him running himself ragged, thinking he had to single handedly take on the criminals Seireitei lets run free?" The cup stilled in his suddenly clawlike grip. "Isn't this what you wanted? Gin turning to you for help, relying on you instead of going rogue under someone else's influence?"

Shunsui retrieved the sake bottle he carried everywhere and poured himself a proper drink with sharp movements. "I've never wanted him forced into the choice. You're lucky it didn't backfire."

He didn't flinch as the cup shattered in Saigo's hand, expecting it. The poor cups saved Shunsui from the worst of Saigo's sharp tongue, the recriminations for letting the city taint him, for not campaigning for true justice, for a complete overhaul of the corrupted system. The cups saved them both really—Shunsui wasn't in a hurry to repeat the fight they'd had after his brother had died. The continued silence afterwards was not expected though and he looked up.

Fingers pressed to his temple, eyes closed in a grimace, Saigo actually seemed to be trying to fully restrain himself. He let out a long breath and his tension seemed to go with it, leaving him looking unbelievably weary once more. He didn't even reach for another cup. "The killers are out there, regardless of my involvement."

Shunsui swirled the sake in his cup, letting the hypnotic motion soothe his temper and his tone. He wasn't accusing him of being behind the murders. Only potentially fabricating them, creating false connections, or having some obscure goal they would all suffer from. "And you're staying for the fallout this time, are you?"

Pursing his lips, Saigo wrapped his hands around his elbows and leaned forward on his arms, looking conflicted. "You shouldn't be the origin of the investigation, no matter how incriminating the evidence you might find," he finally said.

"What?" Shunsui asked, too surprised to frown.

"Don't tell Gin, you understand?" Saigo's tone was slow and heavy, like the words were a struggle to get out. "This investigation needs to come out from someone untouchable before anyone realizes. Keep it close, even from your normal contacts. Don't even try the usual dissemination game. Let the Captain Commander start this."

Was that worry in Saigo's eyes?

"That's a first," Shunsui murmured, reaching out to brush Saigo's cheek with the back of his fingers. "Some days I think you despise Yama-jii as much as nobles." And if Saigo had ever shown concern for his ability to handle a situation, he couldn't recall it. Some might have taken it as a confidence boost, but most of the time, he only suffered when Saigo drastically overestimated what kind of influence he had.

Saigo took Shunsui's hand in his own, skin rougher from use than Shunsui had ever felt. He shook his head, brow twitching, the reflexive anger seeming to give him a little energy. "I have my reasons. But for this—with enough proof he won't ignore it or let it be dismissed. No one can do much of anything to him even if they wanted to—and he won't implicate one of his precious proteges if you don't do it yourself."

"Can you make this any more ominous?" he murmured with a light voice and got a little glimmer of a smile for his efforts. "If there's something else I should know...if you don't think this—"

"I'm not asking you to start a Rukongan rights crusade here," Saigo said, rubbing his hand over his face. "Just find what evidence you can and take it to Yama. Just get it started."

"And don't tell Gin how dangerous all this is. That's risky, isn't it?"

Saigo pursed his lips, looking down at the table.

"What exactly does he think is going to happen then?"

"I told him about that game you nobles play, disseminating rumors, obscuring the origin..." Saigo shrugged awkwardly, tapping his fingers restlessly and looking at the cups. "On...on further thought, I..." he sighed, glanced at Shunsui then away. "I don't think that's enough."

"Saigo..." Shunsui murmured, taken aback. That was the closest thing to a direct apology he'd ever gotten.

Contrary bastard that he was, a small, dark smirk quickly grew on Saigo's face. "Gin didn't think you could do anything, you know? Took me ages to convince him to come to you."

Slumping back, Shunsui threw back the last of his cup and poured another. Whether he said it out of spite or to manipulate, it didn't change how much that stung, even as resigned as he was to his limitations. "You can be such a bastard."

"I'm glad you agreed to help," Saigo said in a small voice as he slid forward onto the table, head dropping onto his arms. His eyes were dark again, but still focused. "I know this is...extra...more than I said before..."

Shunsui heaved a heartfelt, put upon sigh, barely mollified. He'd never not helped, but his and Saigo's definition of 'help'—and their estimations of how much Shunsui and Jyuuishiro could help—had rarely lined up over the centuries they'd known one another. 'Extra' or not... "How could I say no?"

A flash of bright green and a twitch of Saigo's brow reminded Shunsui of the start of a dozen arguments. But Saigo closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Be careful?" he murmured.

"Hey," Shunsui said in concern, resting a hand on Saigo's arm. "Are you going to be able to stick around?" He hated that Saigo was null to his senses in these moments, hated that Saigo's 'condition' was still a taboo topic while he watched it deteriorate over the years. At least he knew the cause, symptoms, and treatment with Jyuu. Had it been this bad for a while and this was merely the first time Saigo had been here for him to see it?

"I'm just tired," Saigo said, sounding on the verge of falling asleep right there.

"Where have you been staying? You can't have been staying with Gin this whole time—"

"Obviously not," Saigo agreed, cracking an eye open just enough for a weak glare. "I've been going home...when I have the time," he admitted in a tired mumble, gaze falling.

Of course. Shunsui sighed. "You're always welcome to stay here with me."

Saigo blinked, before burying his face in his arms with an incoherent mumble.

With a small smile, Shunsui mused he could use a nap himself, loathe to go back to his division and paperwork after all this. Standing and moving over to Saigo, he gently tugged on the man's arm. "Come on, then. This is no place for a nap when the sun is shining."

Obediently, Saigo coiled his arms around Shunsui's neck, letting him pick him up and burying his face into his neck instead.

"You've always had a place to sleep here," Shunsui murmured into Saigo's hair as he fell asleep just like that.

He summoned a butterfly, settling on asking Jyuuishiro to come by for tea when he found the time. That code seemed fitting; don't make a fuss about it, but drop anything non-essential.

It meant he could put off thinking about the enormous task in front of them for a little longer, and hopefully Saigo would have fallen deeply enough asleep to sleep right through Jyuu coming by.

A/N:

Did I mention that chapters have a way of getting longer when I edit them? As this is now the first chapter where we see Gin from someone else's pov, I ended up adding a bunch of things in. Then took a bunch out because I was shoving too much narrative in. Hopefully I found a semi-decent balance...
What did you think of Shunsui's chapter? the different look at Saigo?
Any and all comments and con-crit welcome as always!
And a special appreciation to those that have commented!