Notes: Someone suggested that Ryuken becomes infected with the "Fever" somehow, and has to experience what his son really, really doesn't want to. So I'm going to give it a try. If it doesn't work out I'll work something out so he doesn't get preggers, but it might loosen him up a little bit. I'm not really going to do much with him, have him in the background mostly. Maybe check in on him occasionally.
Then I found this incredibly touching song, one I hadn't used for a fanfic yet. And decided to use it for a songfic chapter. 333, hell, i'm rereading it and hearing the song paired with the fanfic, and crying at my own writing.
Uryu ran, just ran, pushing his way past Isshin, who had been out for a walk with Yamamoto to catch up on what the two of them had missed of each other. Yamamoto didn't try to catch Uryu but Isshin did, hauling him around. "Aaaalright Uryu, what happened? I thought you were going to be at Ichigo's appointment, and that look on your face makes me think either someone died or you're in a real, real, disagreeable mood."
"My father is going to kill me."
"Oh? I take it from your statement and response that Ichigo is pregnant, and one of them is yours?"
Uryu glared at him. "I don't want this. Ichigo wants this. Renji wants this. Byakuya wants this. They can have it."
"But fatherhood is the best job in the world! I wouldn't trade it for anything!"
"I knew you wouldn't understand." Uryu turned to leave, again. "My father is going to /kill/ me." He repeated. "You know what he's like Isshin. I saw you at the hospital once visiting him."
"yes I did. If you like I can talk to your father."
"Hell no!" Uryu growled. "i'm going home." And he did just that, making for the gates.
Isshin sighed. "Well, I have to see his father about the thing we discussed anyway."
"Of course."
"My son did, WHAT?" Isshin was supposed to be delivering samples of the fever virus to Ryuken. "He should know better! He hasn't been infected has he?"
"no, thank god." Isshin sighed. "This fever virus could be a problem. Don't tell anybody what these samples are. And treat them with the highest level of reishi containment you can manage."
"I know what kind of containment to use better than /you/ do." Ryuken growled. "What I can't believe is that /my/ son would be so foolhardy as to..."
"Become intimate with soul reapers? Hello, how many times since Masaki's death have you and I gotten drunk at Urahara's and had sex? Not to mention we did have a threesome and you /loved/ it?"
"what I do is different from what he does. Besides, I can't get you pregnant. He should have used a condom at the very least, if not he should have left and just not been part of it."
"And what sixteen."
"Seventeen." corrected Ryuken
"Year old refuses sex?" Isshin pointed out. "Especially when its one of their schoolmates who is hot, bothered and uncontrollably willing and two drop dead gorgeous gods of death with sex appeal oozing out their ears and eyeballs? Not to mention there's the bonds of battle between them."
Ryuken sighed, giving Isshin a hesitant, gentle kiss before immediately pulling away and blushing slightly. "I really, really wish he would tell me these kinds of things."
"He doesn't feel like he can trust you." replied Isshin. "Thats always been his issue! You need to give your son reason to trust you, reach out Ryuken, don't let your grief over Souken and your wife ruin your relationship with the relative who's still kicking and screaming!" Isshin urged Ryuken.
"If his distrust keeps him from being killed by a shinigami, then I will keep him distrustful." Ryuken growled, thumbing through the report on the known properties and strains of the Fever Virus, as the disease was rapidly becoming known. "And I still do not trust them."
"I know you don't... shit... Ryuken I know what its like to lose your one true soulmate. But you can't let it handicap you for the rest of your life! And it can't let you make your /son/ pass the sins of /his/ father onto /his/ son. Don't you understand what's at stake here? DON'T REPEAT HISTORY!"
Ryuken did, and he was trying, very very hard to forgive. But he could not. As much as he loved Isshin and Urahara, and considered Tessai and Yoruichi to be friends, perhaps even siblings, he could not bring himself near any other soul reaper. It was as much a phobia as it was a hatred.
"my son was in tears Ryuken, because your son was too afraid of you to do the responsible thing."
Ryuken continued reading the files, trying to ignore Isshin, but Isshin knew he was bothering his tempramental lover.
So he left, deciding it was better to give it time.
Ryuken sighed and began to put the samples away. He didn't have time for this.
"Interesting." A voice said from the doorway. "I come here to steal medical supplies, and I not only get a quincy. I get a quincy who's a doctor /and/ who happens to be handling my Master's property."
The woman standing in the doorway had long silky hair, with a crest like mask on the top of her head. "Zephly probably won't mind if I do this."
A small, extremely precise Bala shattered the pietri dish in Ryuken's hand, Ryuken reached for his bow, even with one bleeding hand he could shoot, but the arrancar was gone. An instant later Ryuken felt something impact his head, and he was down on the floor.
Kamrin sighed, whistling. A gigai in her image, dressed as one of the environmental staff that handled cleaning the hospital rooms. Ryuken was struggling for consciousness on the ground, eyes staring dazedly up at Zephly's fraccion. "This will be very interesting intelligence. Its a pity that was the new strain he got infected with." Kamrin pulled herself back into the gigai with a schloop noise. She caught the gikon pill in her hand and put it back into a small suade drawstring pouch, which she hung around her neck and tucked under her scrubs. Then calmly walked down the hallway.
Ryuken lay there, hand cut open, knocked out on the floor.
Over the next few hours, Uryu wandered the streets of Karakura, and eventually his steps took him to the hospital where he knew his father would be. Call it ESP, call it fate, call it stupidity, he suddenly felt the unexplainable urge to visit his father.
I dreamed I was missing
You were so scared
But no one would listen
Cause no one else cared
When he entered his father's office, he wasn't there. One of the nurses told Uryu she'd seen his father go down to his personal laboratory on the bottom floor of the hospital.
So Uryu got himself a soda from the machines, then went downstairs to his father's laboratory. This lab was where the entrance to his hidden training ground they'd used to get his quincy powers back was located.
Uryu opened the door to the laboratory to find a bala mark on the far wall, shattered glass from a pietri dish, and his father delirious on the ground with a bleeding hand.
Uryu's face turned as white as a sheet. He rushed in to his father's side, taking his pulse. The wound had long since stopped bleeding. Uryu looked over the files on the desktop and did a double take, his father was doing routine research on the Fever Virus, the reports were signed by Unohana and Kurotsuchi.
Uryu's blood ran cold, his mind began to reconstruct what had happened and the gears began to turn in his head.
An arrancar had come in, seen his father with the petri dish, somehow known that he was researching the fever virus, shot the petri dish, causing it to break into pieces, cut his hand, and become infected. Uryu whipped out his cellphone and called Urahara, "Moshi moshi, Urahara shoten Kisuke urahara speaking."
"Urahara! I'm in some serious trouble! My dad, he's on the floor, he'd delirious! There's a bala mark on the wall and a broken petri dish next to where he fell, he cut his hands on it and..."
"...became infected... damn. I asked him to see if any human medicines would have an effect on the fever virus. It didn't occur to me that Zephly might have an arrancar infiltrate the hospital."
"What makes you think he infiltrated it?"
"Do you see /any/ signs of arrancar attack other than the bala?"
"No."
"they infiltrated the hospital. The question is /why/?"
"We can find that out later."
"Of course, Yoruichi is here, she's coming to get you both. Be on your guard, the arrancar who did this might still be here."
After my dreaming
I woke with this fear
What am I leaving
When I'm done here
Uryu knelt by his father, careful to avoid the broken petri dish. His father was thrashing and moaning on the ground in pain, calling out. "Uryu I'm sorry... so sorry..." It was very quiet, so quiet that Uryu hadn't heard it until he hung up the phone. "forgive me... son please forgive me... I'm so sorry."
Uryu balked, torn between being touched by his father's fevered begging for him to forgive him, and the frustration that it took him being seriously ill to even want forgiveness.
"URYU!" Yoruichi entered with Renji on her heals. "Are you alright."
"Yes, just help him!" Uryu threw his arms around Renji and it was then that he started to cry.
As Yoruichi bent next to Ryuken, the quincy summoned a hidden reserve of strength, grabbing her leg. "Yoruichi... the... arrancar... had... a... gigai..." Ryuken was straining to get the critical information out. "She... had... a gigai!"
"SHIT." Yoruichi sighed, picking up Ryuken. "How in the three worlds could an arrancar get a gigai?"
"No idea, but I'll relay that information to the Commander General immediately." Renji squeezed Uryu hard. "It will be alright. Heck, it means you'll probably get a brother or sister soon eh?"
"shut up."
"But it gets you off scott free, I mean he'll have to forgive you if he's stricken with the same thing Ichigo has."
Uryu sighed. "Just shut up and hold me okay?" He asked, "You don't understand, you really don't..."
"Alright." Yoruichi picked up Ryuken easily. "Lets go."
So if you're asking me
I want you to know
When my time comes
Forget the wrong that I've done
Help me leave behind some
Reasons to be missed
Renji scooped Uryu up in his arms. And they were away, flashstepping out of the back door of the hospital, Uryu didn't think he was strong enough to hirenkyaku, the shock of seeing what had happened to his father was too much. Yoruichi quickly pulled away from them, out stripping Renji. By the time Renji put Uryu down outside Urahara's door, and Uryu went to the room Ichigo had been cared for in.
They'd managed to get Ryuken into the same white robes used for shinigami invalids and prisoners, he was conscious, but sluggish, heavily anesthetized. The robe hung open loosely, and Uryu could see the massive black and blue mark on his father's stomach caused by the rearranging of his organs.
And Isshin and urahara were there with him, one on either side, and this is what was absolutely shocking, when Ryuken pulled Isshin down to kiss him, an insecure, completely vulnerable look on his face.
Uryu wasn't sure what to think, what to do, what to /say/. He was... flabbergasted, angry, anguished, grieving, his heart was a myriad of powerful emotions as he watched his own father grasping for comfort.
And don't resent me
And when you're feeling empty
Keep me in your memory
Leave out all the rest
Leave out all the rest
A hand settled on uryu's shoulder. Byakuya had finally caught up with Uryu. The Kuchiki looked at the scene, watching as Ryuken buried his face into Isshin's chest and groaned in relief as Urahara rubbed his back in a gesture of comfort, applying spirit energy in a way that would ease the pain.
"He doesn't look ready to kill you to me." Byakuya said quietly after a long moment. The Kuchiki captain took a deep breath, and he said to Uryu. "I know what its like to be a hot headed, impatient teenage boy who can't deal with his grandparents or parents very well."
Uryu blinked, as Byakuya turned Uryu's chin up to look him in the eye. "When we are little, our parents and if they are present our grandparents take on an incredible significance in our minds. We think of our parents as being invincible, and for some people that belief follows them into adulthood. Others have this moment of profound insight, an insight met with grief as this delusion of super humanity is shattered, realizing that their parents too are human, with their own feelings, dreams, and yes, their vulnerabilities.
Byakuya's voice choked up for a moment. "For some this moment comes too late, and we never get the chance to connect with them the way we would have wanted. For others, this moment drives a permanent wedge between them and their own blood. They take this as a chance to leave, and completely strike out on their own and leave the past behind.
"But those that cope best with this knowledge, this one single devastating moment, take it as a chance to try and understand their family, their blood, their progenitors, who underwent an ordeal unparalleled in joy and sorrow by any other in the world to bring them onto this Earth. They use this moment to learn what they never will again, the lives of their parents, and understand it in ways they may never get to ever.
"Whatever you do with Ichigo, trod gently, but try, at least a little, to understand your father in as honest terms as possible. Because someday he will no longer be there, and when that happens, and he is no longer among the living, even if his soul is successfully brought to soul society, he won't remember you, and those memories, that heritage, will have been squandered. For someone who so proudly proclaims themselves to be the last of the quincies, you seem quite ready to pour this heritage down the drain of time."
And then he was gone, heading for the passageway to the underground training area and the gates to the soul society.
Don't be afraid
I've taken my beating
I've shed but I made
I'm strong on the surface
Not all the way through
I've never been perfect
But neither have you
So if you're asking me
I want you to know
Uryu hesitated, pausing at the doorway as Byakuya left, walking hesitantly into the room. Ryuken was barely able to move. He had to be propped up by Isshin and Urahara, who held onto him as if he were the most important thing in the world to them.
He knelt by his father's side, taking one of his hands in his. "Dad... I know you're upset about..."
"Forget it, I did... everything... to protect you... there comes a time when the father has to let the son go. But please, my darling Uryu, don't visit the sins of the grandfather upon the grandson."
"Are you and Isshin and..."
"And Urahara, yes, we've been together on and off since Souken passed. They've been a... great comfort..."
"Sexually?"
"Yes, that too."
Ryuken buried his face in Isshin's chest, for the proud quincy, it was a moment of surrender, leaving his son to follow his heart and allowing his koibitos to comfort and care for him in his agony.
Uryu took that as his signal to leave, Renji was waiting for him at the doorway to the room, and Uryu took his hand. For one long, long moment Uryu looked back one last time, and then he hurried back to the soul society to try and figure out how to apologize to Ichigo.
When my time comes
Forget the wrong that I've done
Help me leave behind some
Reasons to be missed
Ryuken would never in a million years admit to Uryu that he was absolutely terrified and desperately needed physical comfort right then. His consciousness was ebbing, he could think one moment, and blacked out the next, allowing Isshin and Urahara to hold onto him. "I just need to sleep..." He muttered. "Stay here with me? Please?"
"of course."
"Always."
When Ryuken finally gave in to unconsciousness, he felt protected and cared for. And in the state he was in he needed it badly.
Don't resent me
And when you're feeling empty
Keep me in your memory
Leave out all the rest
Leave out all the rest
Uryu found Ichigo helping Ulquiorra with the dishes, reminding him that he hadn't eaten. "Hey, Uryu, Ulquiorra kept some of the venison and potatoes he cooked hot for you."
"Ichigo I'm sorry."
"byakuya told me what happened."
"And he finally surrendered." Uryu muttered. "look, I'm still not keen on this whole thing, I'm really not. But I'll try... but if I seem cold or detatched or... insensitive, please forgive me. I'm not good at this sort of thing at all." Uryu said quietly. "I never dealt well with my father... then I found out he'd been... fucking... your father and Urahara."
"Wouldn't have thunk it, but I also wouldn't have thunk that my father was a shinigami until recently." Ichigo replied. "you don't really know someone until you get blindsided right?"
"Yeah." Uryu sighed. "This makes the whole situation... extremely uncomfortable."
"I guess we'll end up with one big family when this is all over."
"By soul society standards I guess so." He took his share of the dinner and headed upstairs, Renji had gotten them a room for the night. And that was where Renji found him an hour later.
Forgetting
All the hurt inside
You've learned to hide so well
Pretending
Someone else can come and save me from myself
I can't be who you are
Uryu had finished his meal, and he was lying back on the bed, shirtless and tired. Renji sat on the bed next to him and asked. "Uryu, are you alright?"
"I've been better. He let me go. My father let me go. Let me do what I want." Uryu sighed. "I can't believe it."
"He wants your forgiveness."
"And I'm not sure I can give it to him. He was such a... a bastard... when I was young. I was... much more sensitive than I am now." He climbed into Renji's lap and snuggled his face into the redhead's chest. "Can you imagine what effect it would have on an eight year old? Seeing spirits being eaten by hollows? Or crying out to loved ones that they can't leave and move on? I wanted to help, and he refused to let me. He said that being a quincy... wouldn't make any money."
When my time comes
Forget the wrong that I've done
Help me leave behind some
Reasons to be missed
Renji sighed. "He was trying to protect you, and its not unwarrented either. If Kurotsuchi is willing to experiment on an old man you can bet he'd be willing to experiment on a child." Renji held tightly to Uryu. "And then we never woulda met." Renji licked his lips. "If you can try, try to heal from all the stuff you had with yer father, then I will do my best to help you. Maybe, with enough warmth and love, you'll find it in your heart to forgive him. But now is most definitely not the time."
"And the babies?"
Don't resent me
And when you're feeling empty
Keep me in your memory
"Do you want them?"
"I don't know... maybe..." Uryu's eyes went dull. "I don't want to decide immediately."
"Then I will shoulder the burden for the both of us, but he, or she, will need a quincy to guide him or her in their training. Though they won't be up for that for awhile aye?"
Leave out all the rest
Leave out all the rest
Forgetting
All the hurt inside
You've learned to hide so well
Uryu reached up to kiss Renji, deeply, begging him for the comfort that he needed, after all, having one's established order of the universe overturned in one night, is quite the shock. As moonlight filtered into their room, Uryu responded to Renji's touch as ardently as if he himself had been infected with the fever.
Pretending
Someone else can come and save me from myself
I can't be who you are
I can't be who you are