Disclaimer : Bleach and all song titles and lyrics belong to their respective owners
Warning : Idiocy, Isshin, Angsting, Fucked-up-edness
Note : It's short, but I'm giving it to you relatively quickly.
Dedication : Everybody for putting up with me XD

Candy Cane : 12 : Drive

Sometimes...I feel the fear of...uncertainty...stinging clear...
And I...can't help but ask myself how much I'll let the fear...take the wheel and steer...

The "I'm gay" discussion actually went over fairly well. Excellently, even, if one merely looked at the fact that it was a positive reaction. But this being the Kurosaki household, it was almost too positive. At least from Isshin, who quickly ended up falling victim to Ichigo's foot.

Yuzu had turned her questions into a game where Ichigo had to try to answer her questions about Renji before or with Renji. If he didn't, Karin hit him.

"Birthday?"

"August 31," they answered together.

"Favorite food?"

"Taiyaki."

"Least favorite?"

"Spicy things."

"How's that gonna work out?" Karin asked.

"Very carefully, they answered. They looked at each other before snorting in laughter.

"Favorite color?" Yuzu asked, giggling.

Ichigo looked blank. Renji eyed him. "How can you not know that one?"

"Not exactly on the Top Ten Things I Need to Know About My Fighting Partner, okay?"

Renji snorted, smirking, and rolled his eyes. "It's red."

Ichigo smacked his palm against his forehead. Karin gladly smacked him upside the head. "Augh – enough of this!" the brother growled

"Yeah – you didn't drag us all down here just to tell us you like boys," Karin said dryly.

Ichigo nudged their father with his foot. "Wake up, old man."

Isshin popped up immediately. "Yosh! Daddy's back!"

"Urusai!" Ichigo growled. "Just…tell your daughters already, so I don't have to…"

"Eh? Oh!" He swept the girls up in a bear hug, exclaiming, "Girls – your big brother's found true love!"

"We know about that!" Karin snapped, freeing herself. "Ichigo's gay – okay. We get it. So what? What's the other thing you wanted to tell us about?"

"Sober up a little, Dad," Ichigo sighed.

Isshin let Yuzu go and nodded. "Aa – Ichigo is going to be moving again. A little farther away this time," he started.

"To where? America?" Yuzu asked innocently.

Karin frowned, looking from her father back to her brother and Renji sitting together, hip to hip. "Iye… He's going back to Soul Society, isn't he?" she said, bitterness creeping into her voice as her eyes narrowed at the younger of the two boys.

"That place? But why?" Yuzu cried.

"I'm going for good," Ichigo said softly, looking down, "because…there's too much of me over there for me to settle here again."

"Ichi-nii…" The brunette girl hugged her brother. Her maternal instincts had kicked into high gear.

Karin, on the other hand, still seemed pissed about the whole thing. "If you're going back there, what're we gonna do with your body again? Leaving Kon in charge of it was like having a baby brother to take care of."

"I'm… You won't have to worry about that," he answered quietly. "I can't exist in two places at once," he added, that being the only way he could phrase it, justifying it at the same time.

"Are you going to…?" Yuzu couldn't get the word out.

"Gomennasai…" he whispered, wrapping his arms around his baby sister.

Renji got up and walked over to Karin to crouch down in front of her so he was looking up at her. "He's not just tossing you guys aside, you know," he started softly. "This isn't easy for him – doing something for himself. You guys know he's an idiot, and you know he's got the biggest heart in the world."

"So why this? Why leave us?" Karin snapped, though her voice was weaker.

"He's not leaving you. He's just moving."

"He could be killed!"

Renji stopped himself from saying he almost killed himself. "I'll take good care of him, I promise," he replied instead. "And we'll write to you as often as we can, and we'll spend all of the time off we can here. Would that be okay?"

Karin seemed to think about this. "Promise you won't let him do anything stupid."

The redhead smirked. "I can't guarantee anything, but I promise I'll try."

The girl smiled. "You better," she said, forcing her voice to be strong before she hugged her new big brother.

When the girls had calmed down, they discovered that their father had slipped out, leaving a note that he was running an errand he had forgotten about.

Yuzu made dinner for the four of them, which was relatively quiet. After that, they all retired to bed, but not before Karin off-handedly commented about the thin walls. Ichigo blushed, but Renji had easily countered with, "Yeah, I'll try to make sure Ichigo doesn't snore too much."

About an hour after dinner, Ichigo and Renji were on Ichigo's bed, still awake. Ichigo was laying half on top of the older man, an arm folded on the tattooed chest, tucked under the orange-haired head, the short strands of which Renji was idly toying with.

Ichigo lifted his head and looked at Renji finally. "This whole thing… We're doing the right thing, right?" he asked softly. "We're going about this the right way…"

Renji continued to stare up at the ceiling, his free arm tucked under his own head. "I don't know," he answered finally, closing his eyes. "I know…that what we're trying to get is right. I just don't know if we're going about it the right way."

The younger boy sighed. "Why does this have to be this complicated?"

Renji didn't answer – it was a rhetorical question anyway. They both knew exactly why it was complicated. After all, going against the very laws of nature wasn't going to be simple and easy.

"My theory is right, though, isn't it? If you want to die, everything dies?"

"I don't know," Renji said firmly. He hated saying that, but he hated false hope even more. There really wasn't any guarantee that the pseudo-suicide plan would actually work the way they wanted it to. It was true that a soul still bound to life would hover in the living world and would have to be practically forced into Soul Society. It was also true that a soul that welcomed death would disappear – what happened to that soul, though, wasn't clear. On top of that, nobody ever thought to study what happened to people who died certain deaths.

"It…should work, shouldn't it?" he asked softly. He needed positive affirmation of something.

Renji gave in. "Yeah. That doesn't mean it will, though."

Ichigo grunted, not pleased with Renji's pessimism.

"Go to sleep, Ichii," Renji sighed. "We've done enough thinking for today."

"Thinking and talking," Ichigo amended before scooting up and kissing him – he seemed to have fallen into a habit of that within a day. The simple action was enough for him to make sure everything was real, that he wasn't in some fucked up dream.

Ichigo tensed, readying his stance, as the eerily calm man stepped forward, his blade dripping with blood.

Her blood.

It had to be her blood.

The boy snapped and lunged for the traitor. He couldn't believe… After all he had gone through, all the rules he had bent and broken—it couldn't end like this! Too many people were sacrificed!

The sleek black blade sunk into his opponent's chest, crossing perfectly with a pure white blade held up in defense.

The zanpakutou wasn't Aizen's.

"Ichi…go…?"

The voice wasn't Aizen's.

Ichigo looked up.

The face wasn't Aizen's.

He hadn't killed Aizen.

He had killed Rukia.

Ichigo twitched half awake and rolled over, burying his face against Renji's chest as he easily slipped into a much calmer dream, his mind already having forgotten the most recent one.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Song Title and Lyrics: Incubus "Drive"

Word Count: 1244
Total: 25747